

/\^.\ c o *.^i..% y\j^srV. <.°/*~ 

vo* . . an, +> . V , . • • °. . % 4,0" 



°<fe 



^ 
r, 









C 



v.-.v" / 






,/\ 



7< V 



A KEY 



TO 



UNCLE TOM'S CABIN; 



PRESENTING THE ORIGINAL 



FACTS AND DOCUMENTS 



UPON WHICH THE STORY IS FOUNDED. 



TOO ETHEB. WITH 



Corroborate SHatemnds 



TEBIJTIKQ 



THE TRUTH OF THE WORK. 

- • 

BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, 

AUTHOR OF "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN." 



„~- 















BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY JOHN P. JEWETT & CO 

CLEVELAND, OHIO: 

JEWETT, PROCTOR & WORTHINGTON. 

LONDON: LOW AND COMPANY. 

1853. 







. \ 



£"4 f <? 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by 

HARRIET BEECH ER STOWE, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. 



By tr»nafw 
DEC 30 1916 



STrnKOTTi-Kn bt 

IIOBAKT A ROBBING, 

KBW IUIOLAND TVKB A.ND BTSBtOTTTI TOCUDMr, 

BOSTON. 



Doini-cll A. Moon, Printers, 16 Devonshire St., B.*ton. 



TpTVHS 




?. r a3AI303M 



PREFACE. 






The work which the writer here presents to the public is one which has 
been written with no pleasure, and with much pain. 

In fictitious writing, it is possible to find refuge from the hard and the 
terrible, by inventing scenes and characters of a more pleasing nature. No 
such resource is open in a work of fact ; and the subject of this work is one 
on which the truth, if 'told at all, must needs be very dreadful. There is no 
bright side to slavery, as such. Those scenes which are made bright by the 
generosity and kindness of masters and mistresses, would be brighter still if 
the element of slavery were withdrawn. There is nothing picturesque or 
beautiful, in the family attachment of old servants, which is not to be found 
in countries where these servants are legally free. The tenants on an Eng- 
lish estate are often more fond and faithful than if they were slaves. Slavery, 
therefore, is not the element which forms the picturesque and beautiful of 
Southern life. What is" peculiar to slavery, and distinguishes it from free 
servitude, is evil, and only evil, and that continually. 

In preparing this work, it has grown much beyond the author's original 
design. It has so far overrun its limits that she has been obliged to omit 
one whole department ; — that of the characteristics and developments of 
the colored race in various countries and circumstances. This is more 
properly the subject for a volume ; and she hopes that such an one will 
soon be prepared by a friend to whom she has transferred her materials. 

The author desires to express her thanks particularly to those legal 
gentlemen who have given her their assistance and support in the legal part 
of the discussion. She also desires to thank those, at the North and at the 
South, who have kindly furnished materials for her use. Many more have 
been supplied than could possibly be used. The book is actually select 
out of a mountain of materials. 

The great object of the author in writing has been to bring this subject of 
slavery, as a moral and religious question, before the minds of all those who 



IV PREFACE. 

profess to be followers of Christ, in this country. A minute history has 
been given of the action of the various denominations on this subject. 

The writer has aimed, as far as possible, to say what is true, and only 
that, without regard to the effect which it may have upon any person or 
party. She hopes that what she has said will be examined without bitter- 
ness, — in that serious and earnest spirit which is appropriate for the 
examination of so very serious a subject. It would be vain for her to 
indulge the hope of being wholly free from error. In the wide field which 
she has been called to go over, there is a possibility of many mistakes. She 
can only say that she has used the most honest and earnest endeavors to 
learn the truth. 

The book is commended to the candid attention and earnest prayers of 
all true Christians, throughout the world. May they unite their prayers 
that Christendom may be delivered from so great an evil as slavery ' 



«* 



X)6paj 



ftECEIVED. 



PART I. 



4*bSaI8 



CHAPTER I. 

At different times, doubt has been ex- 
pressed whether the representations of 
"Uncle Tom's Cabin" are a fair repre- 
sentation of slavery as it at present exists. 
This work, more, perhaps, than any other 
work of fiction that ever was written, 
has been a collection and arrangement of 
real incidents, — of actions really per- 
formed, of words and expressions really 
uttered, — grouped together with reference 
to a general result, in the same "manner 
that the mosaic artist groups his fragments 
of various stones into one general picture. 
His is a mosaic of gems, — this is a mosaic 
of facts. 

Artistically considered, it might not be 
best to point out in which quarry and from 
which region each fragment of the mosaic 
picture had its origin ; and it is equally un- 
artistic to disentangle the glittering web of 
fiction, and show out of what real warp and 
woof it is woven, and with what real color- 
ing dyed. But the book had a purpose en- 
tirely .transcending the artistic one, and 
accordingly encounters, .at the hands of the 
public, demands not usually made on fic- 
titious works. It is treated as a reality, 
— sifted, tried and tested, as a reality ; and 
therefore as a reality it may be proper 
that it should be defended. 

The writer acknowledges that the book is 
a very inadequate representation of slavery ; 
and it is so, necessarily, for this reason, — 
that slavery, in some of its workings, is too 
dreadful for the purposes of art. A work 
which should represent it strictly as it is 
would be a work which could not be read. 
And all works which ever mean to give 
pleasure must draw a veil somewhere, or 
they cannot succeed. 

The author will now proceed along the 
course of the story, from the first page on- 
ward, and develop, as. far as possible, the 
incidents by which different parts were 
suggested. 






CHAPTER H. 

MR. HALEY. 



In the very first chapter of the book we 
encounter the character of the negro-trader, 
Mr. Haley. His name stands at the head 
of this chapter as the representative of all 
the different characters introduced in the 
work which exhibit the trader, the kidnap- 
per, the negro-catcher, the negro-whipper, 
and all the other inevitable auxiliaries and 
indispensable appendages of what is often 
called the "divinely-instituted relation" 
of slavery. The author's first personal 
observation of this class of beings was some- 
what as follows : 

Several years ago, while one morning 
employed in the duties of the nursery, a 
colored woman was announced. She was 
ushered into the nursery, and the author 
thought, on first survey, that a more surly, 
unpromising face she had never seen. The 
woman was thoroughly black, thick-set, 
firmly built, and with strongly-marked Af- 
rican features. Those who have been ac- 
customed to read the expressions of the 
African face know what a peculiar effect is 
produced by a lowering, desponding expres- 
sion upon its dark features. It is like the 
shadow of a thunder-cloud. Unlike her 
race generally, the woman did not smile 
when smiled upon, nor utter any pleasant 
remark in reply to such as were addressed 
to her. The youngest pet of the nursery, 
a boy about three years old, walked up, and 
laid his little hand on her knee, and seemed 
astonished not to meet the quick smile which 
the negro almost always has in reserve for 
the little child. The writer thought her 
very cross and disagreeable, and, after a few 
moments' silence, asked, with perhaps a 
little impatience, " Do you want anything 
of me to-day?" 

" Here are some papers," said the wo- 
man, pushing them towards her; "perhaps 
you would read them," 

The first paper opened was a letter from 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



a negro-trader in Kentucky, stating con- 
cisely that he had waited about as long as 
he could for her child ; that he wanted to 
start for the South, and must get it off 
his hands ; that, if she would send him 
two hundred dollars before the end of the 
week, she should have it; if not, that he 
would set it up at auction, at the court- 
house door, on Saturday. He added, also, 
that he might have got more than that for 
the child, but that he was willing to let her 
have it cheap. 

••What sort of a man is this ? " said the 
author to the woman, when she had done 
reading the letter. 

" Dunno, ma'am ; great Christian, I 
know, — member of the Methodist church, 
anyhow." 

The expression of sullen irony with which 
this was said was a thing to be remem- 
bered. 

" And how old is this child?" said the 
author to her. 

The woman looked at the little boy who 
had been standing at her knee, with an ex- 
pressive glance, and said, " She will be 
three years old this summer." 

On further inquiry into the history of 
the woman, it appeared that she had been 
set free by the will of her owners ; that 
the child was legally entitled to freedom, 
but had been seized on by the heirs of 
the estate. She was poor and friendless, 
without money to maintain a suit, and the 
heirs, of/ course, threw the child into the 
hands of the trader. The necessary sum, it 
may be added, was all raised in the small 
neighborhood which then surrounded the 
Lane Theological Seminary, and the child 
was redeemed. 

If the public would like a specimen of 
the correspondence which passes between 
these worthies, who are the principal reli- 
ance of the community for supporting and 
extending the Institution of slavery, the fol- 
lowing may he interesting as a matter of 
literary curiosity. It was forwarded by 
Mr. M. J. Thomas, of Philadelphia, to the 
National Era, ami stated by him to he "a 
copy taken verbatim from the original. 
found among the papers of the person to 
whom it was addressed, at the time of his 
arrest and conviction, for passing a variety 
of counterfeit bank-notes." 

Poolsvifle, Montgomery Co., Md., 
March -I, L831. 

Dear Sin: 1 arrived lnmo in safety with Lou- 
isa, Jol in having been rescued from me, out of a 



two-story window, at twelve o'clock at night. I 
offered a reward of fifty dollars, and have him here 
safe in jail. The persons who took him brought 
him to Fredericktownjail. I wish you to write to 
no person in this state but myself. Kephart and 
myself are determined to go the whole hog for any 
negro you can find, and you must give me the ear- 
liest information, as soon as you do find any. En- 
closed you will receive a handbill, and I can make 
a good bargain, if you can find them. I will in 
all cases, as soon as a negro runs off, send" you a 
handbill immediately, so that you may be on the 
look-out. Please tell the constable to go on with 
the sale of John's property ; and, when the money 
is made, I will send on an order to you for it. 
Please attend to this for me ; likewise write to me, 
and inform me of any negro you think has run away, 
— no matter where you think he has come from, 
nor how far, — and I will try and find out his mas- 
ter. Let me know where you think he is from, 
with all particular marks, and if I don't find his 
master, Joe 's dead ! 

Write to me about the crooked-fingered negro, 
and let me know which hand and which finger, 
color, &c; likewise any mark the fellow has who 
says he got away from the negro-buyer, with his 
height and color, or any other you think has 
run off. 

Give my respects to your partner, and be sure 
you write to no person but myself. If any person 
writes to you, you can inform me of it, and I will 
try to buy from them. I think we can make mon- 
ey, if we do business together ; for I have plenty 
of money, if you can find plenty of negroes. Let 
me know if Daniel is still where he was, and if 
you have heard anything of Francis since I left 
you. Accept for yourself my regard and esteem. 
Reuben B. Carlley. 

John C. Saunders. 

This letter strikingly illustrates the 
character of these fellow-patriots with 
whom the great men of our land have been 
acting in conjunction, in carrying out the 
beneficent provisions of the Fugitive Slave 
Law. 

With regard to the Kephart named in 
this letter the community of Boston may 
have a special interest to know further par- 
ticulars, as he Avas one of the dignitaries 
sent from the South to assist the good citi- 
zens of that place in the religious and pa- 
triotic enterprise of 1851, at the time that 
Shadrach was unfortunately rescued. It 
therefore may be well to introduce somewhat 
particularly John Kephart, as sketched 
by Richard II. Dana. Jr.. one of the 
lawyers employed in the defence of the per- 
petrators of the rescue. 

I shall never forget John Caphart. I have been 
eleven years at the bar, and in that time have seen 
many developments of vice and hardness, but I 
never 1111' t with anything so cold-blooded as the 
testimony of that man. John Caphart is a tall, 
sallow man, of about fifty, with jet-Mark hair, a 
restless, dark eye, and an anxious, care-worn 
look, which, had* there been enough of mora] ele- 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



ment in the expression, might be callec! melan- 
choly. His frame was strong, and in youth he 
had evidently been powerful, but he was not ro- 
bust. Yet there was a calm, cruel look, a power 
of will and a quickness of muscular action, which 
still render him a terror in his vocation. 

In the manner of giving in his testimony there 
was no bluster or outward show of insolence. His 
contempt for the humane feelings of the audience 
and community about him was too true to require 
any assumption of that kind. He neither paraded 
nor attempted to conceal the worst features of his 
calling. Pie treated it as a matter of business 
which he knew the community shuddered at, but 
the moral nature of which he was utterly indif- 
ferent to, beyond a certain secret pleasure in thus 
indirectly inflicting a little torture on his hearers. 

I am not, however, altogether clear, to do John 
Caphart justice, that he is entirely conscience- 
proof. There was something in his anxious look 
which leaves one not without hope. 

At the first trial we did not know of his pur- 
suits, and he passed merely as a police-man of 
Norfolk, Virginia. But, at the second trial, some 
one in the room gave me a hint of the occupations 
many of these police-men take to, which led to my 
cross-examination. 

From the Examination of John Caphart, in the 

" Rescue Trials," at Boston, in June and Nov., 

1851, and October, 1852. 

Question. Is it a part of your duty, as a police- 
man, to take up colored persons who are out after 
hours in the streets? 

Answer. Yes, sir. 

Q. What is done with them 1 ? 

A. We put them in the lock-up, and in the 
morning they are brought into court and or- 
dered to be punished, — those that are to be 
punished. 

Q. What punishment do they get? 

A. Not exceeding thirty-nine lashes. 

Q. Who gives them these lashes ? 

A. Any of the officers. 1 do, sometimes. 

Q. Are you paid extra for this ? How much ? 

A. Fifty cents a head. It used to be sixty-two 
cents. Now it is fifty. Fifty cents for each one 
we arrest, and fifty more for each one we flog. 

Q. Are these persons you flog men and boys 
only, or are they women and girls also ? 

A. Men, women, boys and girls, just as it hap- 
pens. 

[The government interfered, and tried to pre- 
vent any further examination ; and said, among 
other things, that he only performed his duty as 
police-officer under the law. After a discussion, 
Judge Curtis allowed it to proceed.] 

Q. Is your flogging confined to these cases ? 
Do you not flog slaves at the request of their 
masters ? 

A. Sometimes I do. Certainly, when I am 
called upon. 

Q. In these cases of private flogging, are the 
negroes sent to you? Have you a place for 
flogging ? 

A. No. I go round, as I am sent for. 

Q. Is this part of your duty as an officer ? 

A. No, sir. 

Q. In these cases of private flogging, do you 
inquire into the circumstances, to see what the 
fault has been, or if there is any ? 

A. That's none of my business. I do as I am 
requested. The master is responsible. 



Q. In these cases, too, I suppose you flog wo- 
men and girls, as well as men. 

A. Women and men. 

Q. Mr. Caphart, how long have you been en- 
gaged in this business ? 

A. Ever since 1836. 

Q. How many negroes do you suppose you have 
flogged, in all, women and children included? 

A. [Looking calmly round the room.] I don't 
know how many niggers you have got here in Mas- 
chusetts, but I should think I had flogged as many 
as you 've got in the state. 

[The same man testified that he was often em- 
ployed to pursue fugitive slaves. His reply to 
the question was, " I never refuse a good job in 
that line."] 

Q. Don't they sometimes turn out bad jobs ? 

A. Never, if I can help it. 

Q. Are they not sometimes discharged after 
you get them ? 

A. Not often. I don't know that they ever are, 
except those Portuguese the counsel read about. 

[I had found, in a Virginia report, a case of 
some two hundred Portuguese negroes, whom this 
John Caphart had seized from a vessel, and en- 
deavored to get condemned as slaves, but whom 
the court discharged.] - 

Hon. John P. Hale, associated with Mr. 
Dana, as counsel for the defence, in the 
Rescue Trials, said of him, in his closing 
argument : 

Why, gentlemen, he sells agony! Torture i3 
his stock-in-trade ! He is a walking scourge ! 
He hawks, peddles, retails, groans and tears about 
the streets of Norfolk ! 

See also the following correspondence 
between two traders, one in North Carolina, 
the other in New Orleans ; with a word of' 
comment, by Hon. William Jay, of New 
York : 

Halifax, N. C, Nov. 16, 1839. 
Dear Sir : I have shipped in the brig Addison, 
— prices are below : 

No. 1. Caroline Ennis, . . . $650 00 

" 2. Silvy Holland, ... . 625.00 

" 3. Silvy Booth, .... 487.50 

" 4. Maria Pollock, . . . 475.00 

" 5. Emeline Pollock, . . . 475.00 

" 6. Delia Averit, .... 475.00 

The two girls that cost $650 and $625 were 
bought before I shipped my first. I have a great 
many negroes offered to me, but I will not pay the 
prices they ask, for I know they will come down. 
I have no opposition in market. I will wait until 
I hear from you before I buy, and then I can 
judge what I must pay. Goodwin will send you 
the bill of lading for my negroes, as he shipped 
them with his own. Write often, as the times 
are critical, and it depends on the prices you get 
to govern me in buying. Yours, &c, 

G. W. Barnes, 
Mr. Theophilus Freeman, ) 
New Orleans. ) 

The above was a small but choice invoice of 
wives and mothers. Nine days before, namely, 
7th Nov., Mr. Barnes advised Mr. Freeman of 
having shipped a lot of forty-three men and 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



women. Mr. Freeman, informing one of his cor- 
respondents of the state of the market, writes 
(Sunday, 21st Sept., 1839), " I bought a boy yes- 
terday, sixteen years old, and likely, weighing 
one hundred and ten pounds, at $700. I sold a 
likely girl, twelve years old, at $500. I bought a 
man yesterday, twenty years old, six feet high, at 
$820 ; one to-day, twenty- four years old, at $850, 
black and sleek as a mole." 

The writer has drawn in this work only 
one class of the negro -traders. There are 
all varieties of them, up to the great whole- 
sale purchasers, who keep their large trad- 
ing-houses ; who are gentlemanly in man- 
ners and courteous in address ; who, in many 
respects, often perform actions of real gen- 
erosity ; who consider slavery a very great 
evil, and hope the country will at some 
time be delivered from it, but who think 
that so long as clergyman and layman, saint 
and sinner, are all agreed in the propriety 
and necessity of slave-holding, it is better 
that the necessary trade in the article be 
conducted by men of humanity and decency, 
than by swearing, brutal men, of the Tom 
Loker school. These men are exceedingly 
sensitive with regard to what they consider 
the injustice of the world in excluding them 
from good society, simply because they un- 
dertake to supply a demand in the com- 
munity which the bar, the press and the 
pulpit, all pronounce to be a proper one. In 
this respect, society certainly imitates the 
unreasonableness of the ancient Egyptians, 
who employed a certain class of men to 
prepare dead bodies for embalming, but 
flew at them with sticks and stones the mo- 
ment the operation was over, on account of 
the sacrilegious liberty which they had 
taken. If there is an ill-used class of men 
in the world, it is certainly the slave-trad- 
ers ; for. if there is no harm in the institu- 
tion of slavery, — if it is a divinely-appointed 
and honorable one, like civil government 
and the family state, and like other species of 
property relation, — then there is no earthly 
reason why a man may not as innocently 
1)0 a slave-trader as any other kind of 
trader. 



CHAPTER III. 

MR. AND MRS. SHELBY. 

It was the design of the writer, in delin- 
eating the domestic arrangements of Mr. 

ami Mrs. Shelby, to show a picture of the 
fairest Bide of slave-life, where easy indul- 
gence and good-natured forbearance are tem- 



pered by just discipline and religious instruc- 
tion, skilfully and judiciously imparted. 

The writer did not come to her task with- 
out reading much upon both sides of the 
question, and making a particular effort to 
collect all the most favorable representa- 
tions of slavery which she could ob- 
tain. And, as the reader may have a 
curiosity to examine some of the documents, 
the writer will present them quite at large. 
There is no kind of danger to the world in 
letting the very fairest side of slavery be 
seen; in fact, the horrors and barbarities 
which are necessarily inherent in it are so 
terrible that one stands absolutely in need 
of all the comfort which can be gained from 
incidents like the subjoined, to save them 
from utter despair of human nature. The first 
account is from Mr. J. K. Paulding's Letters 
on Slavery; and is a letter from a Virginia 
planter, whom we should judge, from his 
style, to be a very amiable, agreeable man, 
and who probably describes very fairly the 
state of things on his own domain. 

Dear Sir : As regards the first query, which 
relates to the " rights and duties of the slave," I 
do not know how extensive a view of this branch 
of the subject is contemplated. In its simplest 
aspect, as understood and acted on in Virginia, I 
should say that the slave is entitled to an abun- 
dance of good plain food ; to coarse but comfortable 
apparel ; to a warm but humble dwelling ; to pro- 
tection when well, and to succor when sick ; and, 
in return, that it is his duty to render to his mas- 
ter all the service he can consistently with per- 
fect health, and to behave submissively and hon- 
estly. Other remarks suggest themselves, but 
they will be more appropriately introduced under 
different heads. 

2d. " The domestic relations of master and 
slave." — These relations are much misunderstood 
by many persons at the North, who regard the 
terms as synonymous with oppressor and op- 
pressed. Nothing can be further from the fact. 
The condition of the negroes in this state has 
been greatly ameliorated. The proprietors were 
formerly fewer and richer than at present. Dis- 
tant quarters were often kept up to support the 
aristocratic mansion. They were rarely Visited 
by their owners; and heartless overseers, fre- 
quently changed, were employed to manage them 
for a share of the cfop. These men scourged the 
land, and sometimes the slaves. Their tenure 
was but for a year, and of course they made tlbe 
most of their brief authority. Owing to the influ- 
ence of our institutions, property has become sub- 
divided, and most persons live on or near their 
estates. There are exceptions, to be sure, and 
particularly among wealthy gentlemen in tlie 

towns ; but these last are almost all enlightened 
and humane, and alike liberal to the soil and to 
the slave who cultivates it. I could point out 
Borne noble instances of patriotic and spirited im- 
provement among thcni. But, to return to th<2 
resident proprietors : most of them have been 
raised on the estates ; from the older negroes 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



they have received in infancy numherless acts of 
kindness ; the younger ones have not unfrequently 
been their playmates (not the most suitable, I 
admit) , and much good-will is thus generated on 
both sides. In addition to this, most men feel 
attached to their property ; and this attachment 
is stronger in the case of persons than of things. 
I know it, and feel it. It is true, there are harsh 
masters ; but there are also bad husbands and 
bad fathers. They are all exceptions to the rule, 
not the rule itself. Shall we therefore condemn 
in the gross those relations, and the rights and 
authority they imply, from their occasional 
abuse 1 I could mention many instances of strong 
attachment on the part of the slave, but w T ill only 
adduce one or two, of which I have been the ob- 
ject. It became a question whether a faithful 
servant, bred up with me from boyhood, should 
give up his master or his wife and children, to 
whom he was affectionately attached, and most 
attentive and kind. The trial was a severe one, 
but he determined to break those tender ties and 
remain with me. I left it entirely to his discre- 
tion, though I would not, from considerations of 
interest, have taken for him quadruple the price I 
should probably have obtained. Fortunately, in 
the sequel, I was enabled to purchase bis family, 
with the exception of a daughter, happily situ- 
ated ; and nothing but death shall henceforth part 
them. Were it put to the test, I am convinced 
that many masters would receive this striking 
proof of devotion. A gentleman but a day or two 
since informed me of a similar, and even stronger 
case, afforded by one of his slaves. As the reward 
of assiduous and delicate attention to a venerated 
parent, in her last illness, I proposed to purchase 
and liberate a healthy and intelligent woman, 
about thirty years of age, the best nurse, and, in 
all respects, one of the best servants in the state, 
of which I was only part owner ; but she declined 
to leave the family, and has been since rather 
better than free. I shall be excused for stating a 
ludicrous case I heard of some time ago : — A 
favorite and indulged servant requested his master 
to sell him to another gentleman. His master re- 
fused to do so, but told him he was at perfect 
liberty to go to the North, if he were not already 
free enough. After a while he repeated the re- 
quest ; and, on being urged to give an explanation 
of his singular conduct, told his master that he 
considered himself consumptive, and would soon 

die ; and he thought Mr. B was better able 

to bear the loss than his master. He was sent to 
a medicinal spring and recovered his health, if, 
indeed, he had ever lost it, of which his master 
had been unapprized. It may not be amiss to 
describe my deportment towards my servants, 
whom I endeavor to render happy while I make 
them profitable. I never turn a deaf ear, but 
listen patiently to their communications. I chat 
familiarly with those who have passed service, or 
have not begun to render it. With the others I 
observe a more prudent reserve, but I encourage 
all to approach me without awe. I hardly ever 
go to town without having commissions, to execute 
for some of them ; and think they prefer to em- 
ploy me, from a belief that, if their money should 
not quite hold out, I would add a little to it ; and 
I not unfrequently do, in order to get a better 
article. The relation between myself and my 
slaves is decidedly friendly. I keep up pretty ex- 
act discipline, mingled with kindness, and hardly 
ever lose property by thievish, or labor by run- 



away slaves. I never lock the outer doors of my 
house. It is done, but done by the servants ; and 
I rarely bestow a thought on the matter. I leave 
home periodically for two months, and commit the 
dwelling-house, plate, and other valuables, to the 
servants, without even an enumeration of the 
articles. 

3d. " The duration of the labor of the slave." — 
The day is usually considered long enough. Em- 
ployment at night is not exacted by me, except to 
shell corn once a week for their own consumption, 
and on a few other extraordinary occasions. The 
people, as we generally call them, are required to 
leave their houses at daybreak, and to work until 
dark, with the intermission of half an hour to an 
hour at breakfast, and one to two hours at dinner, 
according to the season and sort of work. In this 
respect I suppose our negroes will bear a favor- 
able comparison with any laborers whatever. 

4th. " The liberty usually allowed the slave, — 
his holidays and amusements, and the way in 
which they usually spend their evenings and holi- 
days." — They are prohibited from going off the 
estate without first obtaining leave ; though they 
often transgress, and with impunity, except in 
flagrant cases. Those who have wives on other 
plantations visit them on certain specified nights, 
and have an allowance of time for going and re- 
turning, proportioned to the distance. My ne- 
groes are permitted, and, indeed, encouraged, to 
raise as many ducks and chickens as they can ; to 
cultivate vegetables for their own use, and a patch 
of corn for sale ; to exercise their trades, when 
they possess one, which many do ; to catch musk- 
rats and other animals for the fur or the flesh : to 
raise bees, and, in fine, to earn an honest penny 
in any way which chance or their own ingenuity 
may offer. The modes specified are, however, 
those most commonly resorted to, and enable prov- 
ident servants to make from five to thirty dollars 
apiece. The corn is of a different sort from that 
which I cultivate, and is all bought by me. A 
great many fowls are raised ; I have this year 
known ten dollars worth sold by one man at one 
time. One of the chief sources of profit is the 
fur of the muskrat ; for the purpose of catching 
which the marshes on the estate have been par- 
celled out and appropriated from time immemo- 
rial, and are held by a tenure little short of fee- 
simple. The negroes are indebted to Nat Turner * 
and Tappan for a curtailment of some of their 
privileges. As a sincere friend to the blacks, I 
have much regretted the reckless interference of 
these persons, on account of the restrictions it has 
become, or been thought, necessary to impose. 
Since the exploit of the former hero, they have 
been forbidden to preach, except to their fellow- 
slaves, the property of the same owner ; to have 
public funerals, unless a white person officiates ; 
or to be taught to read and write. Their funerals 
formerly gave them great satisfaction, and it was 
customary here to furnish the relations of the de- 
ceased with bacon, spirit, flour, sugar and butter, 
with which a grand entertainment, in their way, ■ 
was got up. We were once much amused by a 
hearty fellow requesting his mistress to let him 
have his funeral during his lifetime, when it would 
do him some good.. The waggish request was 
granted ; and 1 venture to say there never was a 



* The leader of the insurrection in lower Virginia, in 
which upwards of a hundred white persons, principally 
women and children, were massacred in cold bluod. 



10 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



funeral the subject of which enjoyed it so much. 
When permitted, some of our negroes preached 
with great fluency. I was present, a few years 
Bince, when an Episcopal minister addressed the 
people, by appointment. On the conclusion of an 
excellent sermon, a negro preacher rose and 
thanked the gentleman kindly for his discourse, 
but frankly told him the congregation "did not 
understand his lingo.'" He then proceeded him- 
self, with great vehemence and volubility, coining 
words where they had not been made to his hand, 
or rather his tongue, and impressing his hear- 
ers, doubtless, with a decided opinion of his supe- 
riority over his white co-laborer in the field of 
grace. My brother and I, who own contiguous 
estates, have lately erected a chapel on the line 
between them, and have employed an acceptable 
minister of the Baptist persuasion, to which the 
negroes almost exclusively belong, to afford them 
religious instruction. Except as a preparatory 
step to emancipation, I consider it exceedingly 
impolitic, even as regards the slaves themselves, 
to permit them to read and write : " Where igno- 
rance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." And it is 
certainly impolitic as regards their masters, on 
the principle that " knowledge is power." My 
servants have not as long holidays as those of 
most other persons. I allow three days at 
Christmas, and a day at each of three other pe- 
riods, besides a-little time to work the ; r patches ; 
or, if very busy, I sometimes prefer to work them 
myself. Most of the ancient pastimes have been 
lost in this neighborhood, and religion, mock or 
real, has succeeded them. The banjo, their na- 
tional instrument, is known but in name, or in a 
few of the tunes which have survived. Some of 
the younger negroes sing and dance, but the 
evenings and holidays are usually occupied in 
working, in visiting, and in praying and singing 
hymns. The primitive customs and sports are, I 
believe, better preserved further south, where 
slaves were brought from Africa long after they 
ceased to come here. 

6th. " The provision usually made for their 
food and clothing, — for those who are too young 
or too old to labor." — My men receive twelve 
quarts of Indian meal (the abundant and uni- 
versal allowance in this state), seven salted her- 
rings, and two pounds of smoked bacon or three 
pounds of pork, a week; the other bands propor- 
tionally less. But, generally speaking, their food 
is issued daily, with the exception of meal, and 
consists of fish or bacon for breakfast, and meat, 
fresh i ri ill •'!, with vegetables whenever we can 
pro* - ide them, for dinner ; or, for a month or two 
in the spring, fresh fish cooked with a little bacon. 
This mode is rather more expensive to me than 
thai of weekly rations, but more comfortable to 
the servants. Superannuated or invalid slaves 
draw th lir provisi ins regularly once a week; and 
tin! moment a «- ! i i I < 1 ceases to be nourished by its 
mother, it receives eight quarts of meal (more than 
it can consume), and one half-pound of lard. Be- 
sides the food furnished by me, nearly all the 
servants are able fco make some addition from 
their private stores ; and there is among the 
adults hardly an instance of one bo improvideni 

as not to do it. lie must be an unthrifty fellow, 

indeed, who cannot realize the wish of the famous 
Henrj IV. in regard to the French peasantry, and 
enjoy his fowl on Sunday. I always keep 00 
hand, for the use of the negroes, sugar, molasses, 
&c., which, though not regularly issued, arc applied 



for on the slightest pretexts, and frequently no 
pretext at all, and are never refused, except in 
cases of misconduct. In regard to clothing : — 
the men and boys receive a winter coat and trou- 
sers of strong cloth, three shirts, a stout pair of 
shoes^and socks, and a pair of summer pantaloons, 
every year ; a hat about every second year, and a 
great-coat and blanket every third year. Instead 
of great-coats and hats, the women have large 
capes to protect the bust in bad weather, and 
handkerchiefs for the head. The articles fur- 
nished are good and serviceable ; and, with their 
own acquisitions, make their appearance decent 
and respectable. On Sunday they are even fine. 
The aged and invalid are clad as regularly as the 
rest, but less substantially. Mothers receive a 
little raw cotton, in proportion to tlfe number of 
children, with the privilege of having the yarn, 
when spun, woven at my expense. I provide 
them with blankets. Orphans are put with care- 
ful women, and treated with tenderness. I am 
attached to the little slaves, and encourage famil- 
iarity among them. Sometimes, when I ride 
near the quarters, they come running after me with 
the most whimsical requests, and are rendered 
happy by the distribution of some little donation 
The clothing described is that which is given to 
the crop hands. Home-servants, a numerous 
class in Virginia, are of course clad in a different 
and very superior manner. I neglected to men- 
tion, in the proper place, that there are on each 
of my plantations a kitchen, an oven, and one or 
more cooks ; and that each hand is furnished with 
a tin bucket for his food, which is carried into the 
field by little negroes, who also supply the labor- 
ers with water. 

7th. " Their treatment when sick."— My negroes 
go, or are carried, as soon as they are attacked, to 
a spacious and well-ventilated hospital, near the 
mansion-house. They are there received by an 
attentive nurse, who has an assortment of medi- 
cine, additional bed-clothing, and the command of 
as much light food as she may require, either 
from the table or the store-room of the proprietor. 
'Wine, sago, rice, and other little comforts apper- 
taining to such an establishment, are always 
kept on hand. The condition of the sick is much 
better than that of the poor whites or free colored 
people in the neighborhood. 

8th. " Their rewards and punishments." — I 
occasionally bestow little gratuities for good con- 
duct, and particularly after harvest ; and hardly 
ever refuse a favor asked by those who faithfully 
perform their duty. Vicious and idle servants are 
punished with stripes, moderately indicted ; to 
which, in the case of theft, is added privation of 
meat, a severe punishment to those who are never 
suffered to be without it On any other account. 
From my limited observation, 1 think that ser- 
vants to the North work much harder than our 
slaves. I was educated at a college in one of tho 
free states, and, on my return to Virginia, was 
struck with the contrast. 1 was astonished at the 
number of idle domesties. and actually worried my 
mother, much to my contrition since', to reduce 
the establishment. I say to my contrition, be- 
cause, after eighteen years* residence in the good 

Old Dominion, I find myself surrounded by a troop 

Of servants about as numerous as that against 

which I formerly so loudly exclaimed. While on 
this subject it may QOf be amiss to state a case of 
manumission which occurred about three years 
since. My nearest neighbor, a man of immensa 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 






11 



wealth, owned a favorite servant, a fine fellow, 
with polished manners and excellent disposition, 
who reads and writes, and is thoroughly versed in 
the duties of a hutler and housekeeper, in the per- 
formance of which he was trusted without limit. 
This man was, on the death of his master, eman- 
cipated with a legacy of six thousand dollars, be- 
sides about two thousand dollars more which he had 
been permitted to accumulate, and had deposited 
with his master, who had given him credit for it. 
The use that this man, apparently so well quali- 
fied for freedom, and who has had an opportunity 
of travelling and of judging for himself, makes of 
his money and his time, is somewhat remarkable. 
In consequence of his exemplary conduct, he has 
been permitted to reside in the state, and for very 
moderate wages occupies the same situation he 
did in the old establishment, and will probably 
continue to occupy it as long as he lives. He has 
no children of his own, but has put a little girl, a 
relation of his, to school. Except in this instance, 
and in the purchase of a few plain articles of fur- 
niture, his freedom and his money seem not much 
to have benefited him. A servant of mine, who 
is intimate with him, thinks he is not as happy as 
he was before his liberation. Several other serv- 
ants were freed at the same time, with smaller leg 
acies, but I do not know what has become of them. 

I do not regard negro-slavery, however mitigat- 
ed, as a Utopian system, and have not intended so 
to delineate it. But it exists, and the difficulty of 
removing it is felt and acknowledged by all, save 
the fanatics, who, like " fools, rush in where 
angels dare not tread." It is pleasing to know 
that its burdens are not too heavy to be borne. 
That the treatment of slaves in this state is hu- 
mane, and even indulgent, may be inferred from the 
fact of their rapid increase and great longevity. I 
believe that, constituted as they are, morally and 
physically, they are as happy as any peasantry 
in the world ; and I venture to affirm, as the re- 
sult of my reading and inquiry, that in no coun- 
try are the laborers so liberally and invariably sup- 
plied with bread and meat as are the negro slaves 
of the United States. However great the dearth 
of provisions, famine never reaches them. 

P. S. — It might have been stated above that 
on this estate there are about one hundred and 
sixty blacks. With the exception of infants, 
there has been, in eighteen months, but one 
death that I remember, — that of a man fully sixty- 
five years of age. The bill for medical attend- 
ance, from the second day of last November, com- 
prising upwards of a year, is less than forty dol- 
lars. 

The following accounts are taken from 
" Ingrahain's Travels in the South-west," a 
work which seems to have been written as 
much to show the beauties of slavery as 
anything else. Speaking of the state of 
things on some Southern plantations, he gives 
the following pictures, which are presented 
without note or comment : 

The little candidates for " field honors" are use- 
less articles on a plantation during the first five 
or six years of their existence. They are then to 
take their first lesson in the elementary part of their 
education. When they have learned their manual 
alphabet tolerably well, they are placed in the 



field to take a spell at cotton-picking. The first 
day in the field is their proudest day. The young 
negroes look forward to it with as much restless- 
ness and impatience as school-boys to a vacation. 
Black children are not put to work so young as 
many children of poor parents in the North. It 
is often the case that the children of the domestic 
servants become pets in the house, and the play- 
mates of the white children of the family. No 
scene can be livelier or more interesting to a North- 
erner, than that which the negro quarters of a 
well-regulated plantation present on a Sabbath 
morning, just before church-h^urs. In every 
cabin the men are shaving and dressing ; the wo- 
men, arrayed in their gay muslins, are arranging 
their frizzly hair, — in which they take no little 
pride, — or investigating the condition of their chil- 
dren ; the old people, neatly clothed, are quietly 
conversing: or ^.^King about the doors ; and those 
of the v-.n.ger portion who are not undergoing the 
infliction of the wash-tub are enjoying themselves 
in the shade of the trees, or around some little 
pond, with as much zest as though slavery and 
freedom were synonymous terms. When all are 
dressed, and the hour arrives for worship, they 
lock up their cabins, and the whole population of 
the little village proceeds to the chapel, where 
divine service is performed, sometimes by an 
officiating clergyman, and often by the planter 
himself, if a church-member. The whole planta- 
tion is also frequently formed into a Sabbath 
class, which is instructed by the planter, or some 
member of his family; and often, such is the 
anxiety of the master that they should perfectly 
understand what they are taught, — a hard matter 
in the present state of their intellect, — that no 
means calculated to advance their progress are 
left untried. I was not long since shown a manu- 
script catechism, drawn up with great care and 
judgment by a distinguished planter, on a plan 
admirably adapted to the comprehension of the , 
negroes. 

It is now popular to treat slaves with kindness ; 
and those planters who are known to be inhumanly 
rigorous to their slaves are scarcely countenanced 
by the more intelligent and humane portion of 
the community. Such instances, however, are 
very rare ; but there are unprincipled men every- 
where, who will give vent to their ill feelings and 
bad passions, not with less good will upon the 
back of an indented apprentice, than upon that of 
a purchased slave. Private chapels are now in- 
troduced upon most of the plantations of the 
more wealthy, which are far from any church ; 
Sabbath-schools are instituted for the black chil- 
dren, and Bible-classes for the parents,_ which are 
superintended by the planter, a chaplain, or some 
of the female members of the family. 

Nor are planters indifferent to the comfort of 
their gray-headed slaves. I have been much af- 
fected at beholding many exhibitions of their 
kindly feeling towards them. They always address 
them in a mild and pleasant manner, as " Un- 
cle," or " Aunty," — titles as peculiar to the old 
negro and negress as " boy " and " girl " to all 
under forty years of age. Some old Africans are 
allowed to spend their last years in their houses, 
without doing any kind of labor ; these, if not too 
infirm, cultivate little patches of ground, on which 
they raise a few vegetables, — for vegetables grow 
nearly all the year round in this climate, — and 
make a little money to purchase a few extra com- 
forts. They are also always receiving presents 



12 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



from their masters and mistresses, and the negroes 
on the estate, the latter of whom are extremely 
desirous of seeing the old people comfortable. A 
relation of the extra comforts which some planters 
allow their slaves would hardly obtain credit at 
the North. But you must recollect that Southern 
planters are men, and men of feeling, gener- 
ous and high-minded, and possessing as much of 
the "milk of human kindness" as the sons of 
colder climes — although they may have been 
educated to regard that as right which a differ- 
ent education has led Northerners to consider 
wrong. 

With regard to the character of Mrs. 
Shelby the writer must say a few words. 
While travelling in Kentucky, a few years 
since, some pious ladies expressed to her 
the same sentiments with regard to slavery 
which the reader has heard expressed by 
Mrs. Shelby. 

There are many whose natural sense of 
justice cannot be made to tolerate the enor- 
mities of the system, even though they hear 
it defended by clergymen from the pulpit, 
and see it countenanced by all that is most 
honorable in rank and wealth. 

A pious lady said to the author, with re- 
gard to instructing her slaves, "I am 
ashamed to teach them what is right ; I 
know that they know as well as I do that it 
is wrong to hold them as slaves, and I am 
ashamed to look them in the face." Point- 
ing to an intelligent mulatto woman who 
passed through the room, she continued, 
" Now, there 's B . She is as intelli- 
gent and capable as any white woman I 
ever knew, and as well able to have her 
liberty and take care of herself; and she 
knows it isn't right to keep her as we do, 
and I know it too ; and yet I cannot get my 
husband to think as I do, or I should be 
glad to set them free." 

A venerable friend of the writer, a lady 
born and educated a slave-holder, used to 
the writer the very words attributed to Mrs. 
Shelby : — " I never thought it was right to 
hold slaves. I always thought it was 
wrong when I was a girl, and I thought so 
still more when I came to join the church." 
An incident related by this friend of her 
examination for the church shows in a 
striking manner what a difference may often 
exist between theoretical and practical be- 
nevolence. 

A certain class of theologians in Amer- 
ica have advocated the doctrine of disinter- 
ested benevolence with such zeal as to make 
it an imperative article of belief that every 
individual ought to be willing to endure ever- 
lasting misery, if by doing 30 they could, 



on the whole, produce a greater amount of 
general good in the universe ; and the in- 
quiry was sometimes made of candidates for 
church-membership whether they could 
bring themselves to this point, as a test of 
their sincerity. The clergyman who was to 
examine this lady was particularly interested 
in these speculations. When he came to 
inquire of her with regard to her views as 
to the obligations of Christianity, she in- 
formed him decidedly that she had brought 
her mind to the point of emancipating all 
her slaves, of whom she had a large number. 
The clergyman seemed rather to consider 
tliis as an excess of zeal, and recommended 
that she should take time to reflect upon it. 
He was, however, very urgent to know 
whether, if it should appear for the greatest 
good of the universe, she would be willing 
to be damned. Entirely unaccustomed to 
theological speculations, the good woman 
answered, with some vehemence, that " she 
was sure she was not;" adding, naturally 
enough, that if that had been Tier purpose 
she need not have come to join the church. 
The good lady, however, was admitted, and 
proved her devotion to the general good by 
the more tangible method of setting all her 
slaves at liberty, and carefully watching 
over their education and interests after they 
were liberated. 

Mrs. Shelby is a fair type of the very 
best class of Southern women ; and while 
the evils of the institution are felt and de- 
plored, and while the world looks with just 
indignation on the national support and 
patronage which is given to it, and on the 
men who, knowing its nature, deliberately 
make efforts to perpetuate and extend it, it 
is but justice that it should bear in mind 
the virtues of such persons. 

Many of them, surrounded by circum- 
stances over which they can have no con- 
trol, perplexed by domestic cares of which 
women in free states can have very little 
conception, loaded down by duties and re- 
sponsibilities which wear upon the very 
springs of life, still go on bravely and pa- 
tiently from day to day, doing all they can 
to alleviate what they cannot prevent, and, 
as far as the sphere of their own immediate 
power extends, rescuing those who are de- 
pendent upon them from the evils of the 
system. 

We read of Ilim who shall at last come 
to judgment, that " His fan is in his hand, 
and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and 
gather his wheat into the garner." Out 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



13 



of the great abyss of national sin he will 
rescue every grain of good and honest pur- 
pose and intention. His eyes, which are as a 
flame of fire, penetrate at once those intricate 
mazes where human judgment is lost, and 
will save and honor at last the truly good 
and sincere, however they may have been 
involved with the evil ; and such souls as 
have resisted the greatest temptations, and 
persisted in good under the most perplexing 
circumstances, are those of whom he has 
written, " And they shall be mine, saith the 
Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up 
my jewels ; and I will spare them as a man 
spareth his own son that serveth him." 



CHAPTER IV. 

GEORGE HARRIS. • 

The character of George Harris has been 
represented as overdrawn, both as respects 
personal qualities and general intelligence. 
It has been said, too, that so many afflictive 
incidents happening to a slave are improba- 
ble, and present a distorted view of the 
institution. 

In regard to person, it must be remem- 
bered that the half-breeds often inherit, to a 
great degree, the traits of their white an- 
cestors. For this there is abundant evi- 
dence in the advertisements of the papers. 
Witness the following from the Chattanooga 
(Term.) Gazette, Oct. 5th, 1852 : 

$500 REWARD. 

v« Runaway from the subscriber, on the 25th 
SS May, a VERY BRIGHT MULATTO BOY, 
•gl about 21 or 22 years old, named "WASH. 
Said boy, without close observation, might 
pass himself for a white man, as he is very bright 
— has sandy hair, blue eyes, and a fine set of 
teeth. He is an excellent bricklayer ; but I have 
no idea that he will pursue his trade, for fear of 
detection. Although he is like a white man in 
appearance, he has the disposition of a negro, and 
delights in comic songs and witty expressions. 
He is an excellent house servant, very handy 
about a hotel, — tall, slender, and has rather a 
down look, especially when spoken to, and is 
sometimes inclined to be sulky. I have no doubt 
but he has been decoyed off by some scoundrel, 
and I will give the above reward for the appre- 
hension of the boy and thief, if delivered at Chat- 
tanooga. Or, I will give $200 for the boy alone ; 
or $100 if confined in any jail in the United States, 
so that I can get him. 

GEORGE 0. RAGLAND. 
Chattanooga, June 15, 1852. 

Prom the Capitolian Vis-a-vis, West 
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Nov. 1, 1852 : 



$150 REWARD. 

Runaway about the 15th of August last, Joe, a 
yellow man ; small, about 5 feet 8 or 9 inches 
high, and about 20 years of age. Has a Roman 
nose, was raised in New Orleans, and speaks 
French and English. He was bought last winter 
of Mr. Digges, Banks Arcade, New Orleans. 

In regard to general intelligence, the 
reader will recollect that the writer stated 
it as a fact which she learned while on a 
journey through Kentucky, that a young 
colored man invented a machine for clean- 
ing hemp, like that alluded to in her 
story. 

Advertisements, also, occasionally pro- 
pose for sale artisans of different descrip- 
tions. Slaves are often employed as pilots 
for vessels, and highly valued for their skill 
and knowledge. The following are adver- 
tisements from recent newspapers. 

From the South Carolinian (Columbia), 
Dec. 4th, 1852 : 

VALUABLE NEGROES AT AUCTION. 

BY J. & L. T. LEVIN. 

WILL be sold, on MONDAY, the 6th day of De- 
cember, the following valuable NEGROES : 
Andrew, 24 years of age, a bricklayer and plas- 
terer, and thorough workman. 

George, 22 years of age, one of the best barbers 
in the State. 
James, 19 years of age, an excellent painter. 
These boys were raised in Columbia, and are 
exceptions to most of boys, and are sold for no 
fault whatever. 

The terms of sale are one-half cash, the balance 
on a credit of six months, with interest, for notes 
payable at bank, with two or more approved 
endorsers. 

Purchasers to pay for necessary papers. 

WILLIAM DOUGLASS. 
November 27, 36. 

From the same paper, of November 18th, 

1852: 

Will be sold at private sale, a LIKELY MAN, 
boat hand, and good pilot; is well acquainted 
with all the inlets between here and Savannah 
and Georgetown. 

With regard to the incidents of George 
Harris' life, that he may not be supposed a 
purely exceptional case, we propose to offer 
some parallel facts from the lives of slaves 
of our personal acquaintance. 

Lewis Clark is an acquaintance of the 
writer. Soon after his escape from slavery, 
he was received into the family of a sister- 
in-law of the author, and there educated. 
His conduct during this time was such as 
to win for him uncommon affection and re- 
spect, and the author has frequently heard 



14 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 



him spoken of in the highest terms by all 
who knew him. 

The gentleman in whose family he so 
long resided says of him, in a recent letter 
to the writer, " I would trust him, as the 
saying is, with untold gold." 

Lewis is a quadroon, a fine-looking man, 
with European features, hair slightly wavy, 
and with an intelligent, agreeable expres- 
sion of countenance. 

The reader is now desired to compare the 
following incidents of his life, part of which 
he related personally to the author, with 
the incidents of the life of George Harris. 

His mother was a handsome quadroon 
woman, the daughter of her master, and 
given by him in marriage to a free white 
man, a Scotchman, with the express under- 
standing that she and her children were to 
be free. This engagement, if made sin- 
cerely at all, was never complied with. His 
mother had nine children, and, on the death 
of her husband, came back, with all these 
children, as slaves in her father's house. 

A married daughter of the family, who 
was the dread of the whole household, on 
account of the violence of her temper, had 
taken from the family, upon her marriage, 
a young girl. By the violence of her 
abuse she soon reduced the child to a state 
of idiocy, and then came imperiously back 
to her father's establishment, declaring that 
the child was good for nothing, and that 
she would have another ; and, as poor Lewis' 
evil star would have it, fixed her eye upon 
him. 

To avoid one of her terrible outbreaks of 
temper, the family offered up this boy as a 
pacificatory sacrifice. The incident is thus 
described by Lewis, in a published narra- 
tive : 

Every boy was ordered in, to pass before tins 
female sorceress, that she might select a victim 
for her unprovoked malice, and on whom to pour 
tin' vialfl of her wrath for years. I was that un- 
lucky fellow. Mr. Campbell, my grandfather, 
objected, because it would divide a family, and 
offered her Moses ; * * * but objections and 
claims of overy kind were swept away by the wild 
passion and shrill-toned voice of Mrs. B. Me she 
would have, and nono else. Mr. Campbell went 
out to hunt, and drive away bad thoughts ; the 
old lady became quiet, for she was sure none of 
her blood run in my veins, and, if there was any 
of her husband'a there, it was no fault of hers. 
Slave-holding women are always revengeful toward 
the children of slaves Chat have any of the blood 
of their husbands in them. I was too young — 
only seven years of age — to understand what 
was going on. But my poor and affectionate 
Mother understood and appreciated it all. WTien 
Bhe left the kitchen of the inansioh-house, where 
she was employed as cook, and came home to her 



own little cottage, the tear of anguish was in her 
eye, and the image of sorrow upon every feature 
of her face. She knew the female Nero whose 
rod was now to be over me. That night sleep 
departed from her eyes. AVith the youngest child 
clasped firmly to her bosom, she spent the night 
in walking the floor, coming ever and anon to Tift 
up the clothes and look at me and my poor brother, 
who lay sleeping together. Sleeping, I said 
Brother slept, but not I. I saw my mother when 
she first came to me, and I could not sleep. The 
vision of that night — its deep, ineffaceable im- 
pression — is now before my mind with all the 
distinctness of yesterday. In the morning I was 
put into the carnage with Mrs. B. and her chil- 
dren, and my weary pilgrimage of suffering was 
fairly begun. 

Mrs. Banton is a character that can only 
exist where the laws of the land clothe with 
absolute power the coarsest, most brutal and 
violent-tempered, equally with the most 
generous and humane. 

If irresponsible power is a trial to the 
virtue of the most watchful and careful, 
how fast must it develop cruelty in those 
who are naturally violent and brutal ! 

This woman was united to a drunken 
husband, of a temper equally ferocious. A 
recital of all the physical torture which this 
pair contrived to inflict on a hapless child, 
some of which have left ineffaceable marks 
on his person, would be too trying to hu- 
manity, and we gladly draw a veil over it. 

Some incidents, however, are presented 
in the following extracts : 

A very trivial offence was sufficient to call forth 
a great burst of indignation from this woman of 
ungoverned passions. In my simplicity, I put my 
lips to the same vessel, and drank out of it, from 
which her children were accustomed to drink. 
She expressed her utter abhorrence of such an 
act by throwing my head violently back, and 
dashing into my face two dippers of water. The 
shower of water was followed by a heavier shower 
of kicks ; but the words, bitter and cutting, that 
followed, were like a storm of hail upon my young 
heart. " She would teach me better manners than 
that ; she would let me know I was to be brought 
up to her hand ; she would have one slave that 
knew his place : if I wanted water, go to the 
spring, and not drink there in the house." This 
was new times for me ; for some days I was com- 
pletely benumbed with my sorrow. 

####■#* 

If there be one so lost to all feeling as even to 
say that the slaves do not suffer when families 
are separated, let such a one go to the ragged 
quilt which was my couch and pillow, and stand 
there night alter night, for long, weary hours, 
and see the bitter toars streaming down the face 
of that more than orphan boy, while with half- 
suppressed sighs and sobs he calls again and 
again upon his absent mother. 

" Say, wast thou consolous of the tears I shed 1 
Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son 1 
Wretch oven then ! life's journey just begun." 



E.EY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



15 



He was employed till late at night in 
spinning flax or rocking the baby, and 
called at a very early hour in the morning ; 
and if he did not start at the first summons, 
a cruel chastisement was sure to follow. 
He says : 

Such horror has seized me, lest I might not 
hear the first shrill call, that I have often in 
dreams fancied I heard that unwelcome voice, 
and have leaped from my couch and walked 
through the house and out of it before I awoke. 
I have gone and called the other slaves, in my 
Bleep, and asked them if they did not hear master 
call. Never, while I live, will the remembrance 
of those long, bitter nights of fear pass from my 
mind. 

He adds to this words which should be 
deeply pondered by those who lay the flat- 
tering unction to their souls that the op- 
pressed do not feel the sundering of family 
ties. 

But all my severe labor, and bitter and cruel 
punishments, for these ten years of captivity with 
this worse than Arab family, all these were as 
nothing to the sufferings I experienced by being 
separated from my mother, brothers and sisters ; 
the same things, with them near to sympathize 
with me, to hear my story of sorrow, would have 
been comparatively tolerable. 

They were distant only about thirty miles ; and 
yet, in ten long, Tonely years of childhood, I was 
only permitted to see them three times. 

My mother occasionally found an opportunity 
to send me some token of remembrance and affec- 
tion, — a sugar-plum or an apple ; but I scarcely 
ever ate them ; they were laid up, and handled 
and wept over, till they wasted away in my 
hand. 

My thoughts continually by day, and my dreams 
by night, were of mother and home ; and the hor- 
ror experienced in the morning, when I awoke 
and behold it was a dream, is beyond the power 
of language to describe. 

Lewis had a beautiful sister by the name 
of Delia, who, on the death of her grand- 
father, was sold, with all the -other children 
of his mother, for the purpose of dividing 
the estate. She was a pious girl, a mem- 
ber of the Baptist church. She fell into 
the hands of a brutal, drunken man, who 
wished to make her his mistress. Milton 
Clark, a brother of Lewis, in the narra- 
tive of his life describes the scene where 
he, with his mother, stood at the door 
while this girl was brutally whipped be- 
fore it for wishing to conform to the prin- 
ciples of her Christian profession. As her 
resolution was unconquerable, she was 
placed in a coffle and sent down to the 
New Orleans market. Here she was sold 
to a Frenchman, named Coval. He took 
her to Mexico, emancipated and married 



her. After residing some time in France 
and the West Indies with him, he died, 
leaving her a fortune of twenty or thirty 
thousand dollars. At her death she endeav- 
ored to leave this by will to purchase the 
freedom of her brothers ; but, as a slave 
cannot take property, or even have it left 
in trust for him, they never received any 
of it. 

. The incidents of the recovery of Lewis' 
freedom are thus told : 

I had long thought and dreamed of Liberty ; I 
was now determined to make an effort to gain it. 
No tongue can tell the doubt, the perplexities, the 
anxiety, which a slave feels, when making up his 
mind upon this subject. If he makes an effort, 
and is not successful, he must be laughed at by 
his fellows, he will be beaten unmercifully by the 
master, and then watched and used the harder for 
it all his life. 

And then, if he gets away, u-ho, what will he 
find 1 He is ignorant of the world. All the white 
part of mankind, that he has ever seen, are ene- 
mies to him and all his kindred. How can he 
venture where none but white faces shall greet 
him ? The master tells him that abolitionists 
decoy slaves off into the free states to catch them 
and sell them to Louisiana or Mississippi ; and, if 
he goes to Canada, the British will put him in a 
mine wider ground, with both eyes put out, for life. 
How does he know what or whom to believe ? A 
horror of great darkness comes upon him, as he 
thinks over what may befall him. Long, very 
long time did I think of escaping, before 1 made 
the effort. 

At length, the report was started that I was to 
be sold for Louisiana. Then 1 thought it waa 
time to act. My mind was made up. 

###### 

What my feelings were when I reached the free 
shore can be better imagined than described. I 
trembled all over with deep emotion, and I could 
feel my hair rise up on my head. I was on what 
was called a free soil, among a people who had 
no slaves. I saw white men at work, and no 
slave smarting beneath the lash. Everything waa 
indeed new and wonderful. Not knowing where 
to find a friend, and being ignorant of the coun- 
try, unwilling to inquire, lest I should betray my 
ignorance, it was a whole week before I reached 
Cincinnati. At one place where I put up, I had 
a great many more questions put to me than I 
wished to answer. At another place, I was very 
much annoyed by the officiousness of the landlord, 
who made it a point to supply every guest with 
newspapers. I took the copy handed me, and 
turned it over, in a somewhat awkward manner, 
I suppose. He came to me to point out a veto, 
or some other very important news. I thought it 
best to decline his assistance, and gave up the 
paper, saying my eyes were not in a fit condition 
to read much. 

At another place, the neighbors, on learning 
that a Kentuckian was at the tavern, came, in 
great earnestness, to find out what my business 
was. Kentuckians sometimes came there to kid- 
nap their citizens. They were in the habit of 
watching them close. I at length satisfied them 
by assuring them that I was not, nor my father 



16 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



before me, any slave-holder at all ; but, lest their land stronger than myself, took hold of my arms 
suspicions should be excited in another direction, 
I added my grandfather was a slave-holder. 



At daylight we were in Canada. When I 
stepped ashore here, I said, sure enough, I am 
free. Good heavens ! what a sensation, when it 
first visits the bosom of a full-grown man ; one 
born to bondage ; one who had been taught, from 
early infancy, that this was hi* inevitable lot for 
life ! Not till then did I dare to cherish, for a 
moment, the feeling that one of the limbs of my 
body was my own. The slaves often say, when 
cut in the hand or foot, "Plague on the old foot" 
or ' ' the old hand ! It is master's, — let him take 
care of it Nigger don't care if he never get well. ' ' 
My hands ; my feet, were now my own. 

It will be recollected that George, in con- 
versing with Eliza, gives an account of a 
seene in which he was violently beaten by 
his master's young son. This incident was 
suggested by the following letter from John 
M. Nelson to Mr. Theodore Weld, given 
in Slavery as If, Is, p. 51. 

Mr. Nelson removed from Virginia to 
Highland County, Ohio, many years since, 
where he is extensively known and re- 
spected. The letter is dated January 3d, 
1839. 



I was born and raised in Augusta County, Vir- 
ginia ; my father was an elder in the Presbyterian 
church, and was " owner " of about twenty slaves ; 
he was what was generally termed a" good mas- 
ter.'' His slaves were generally tolerably well fed 
and clothed, and not over-worked ; they were some- 
times permitted to attend church, and called in to 
family worship ; few of them, however, availed 
themselves of these privileges. On some occasions 
I have seen him whip them severely, particularly 
for the crime of trying to obtain their liberty, or for 
what was called " running away." For this they 
were scourged more severely than for anything else. 
After they have been retaken I have seen them 
stripped naked and suspended by the hands, some- 
times to a tree, sometimes to a post, until their 
toes barely touched the ground, and whipped with 
a cowhide until the blood dripped from their backs. 
A boy named Jack, particularly, I have seen 
served in this way more than once. When I was 
quite a child, I recollect it grieved me very much 
to see one tied up to be whipped, and 1 used to 
intercede with tears in their behalf, and mingle 
my cries with theirs, and feel almost willing to 
take part of the punishment ; I have been severely 
rebuked by my father for this kind of sympathy. 
Yet, such is the hardening nature of such scenes, 
that from this kind of commiseration for the suf- 
fering Blare I became so blunted that 1 could not 
only witness their stripes with composure, but 
myself inflict them, ami that without remorse. 
One case I have often looked back to with sorrow 
and contrition, particularly since I have been con- 
vinced that "negroes are men." When I was 
perhaps fourteen or fifteen years of age, 1 under- 
took to correct a young fellow named Ned, for 
somo supposed offence, — 1 think it was leaving a 
bridle out of its proper placo ; he, being larger 



ind held me, in order to prevent my striking him. 
This I considered the height of insolence, and 
cried for help, when my father and mother both 
came running to my rescue. My father stripped 
and tied him, and took him into the orchard, where 
switches were plenty, and directed me to whip 
him ; when one switch wore out, he supplied me 
with others. After I had whipped him a while, 
he fell on his knees to implore forgiveness, and I 
kicked him in the face ; my father said, " Don't 
kick him, but whip him;" this I did until lira 
back was literally covered with ivcJts. I know I 
have repented, and trust I have obtained pardon 
for these things. 

My father owned a woman (we used to call 
aunt Grace) ; she was purchased in Old Virginia. 
She has told me that her old master, in his will, 
gave her her freedom, but at his death his sons 
had sold her to my father : when he bought her 
she manifested some unwillingness to go with him, 
when she was put in irons and taken by force. 
This was before I was born ; but I remember to 
have seen the irons, and was told that was what 
they had been used for. Aunt Grace is still living, 
and must be between seventy and eighty years of 
age ; she has, for the last forty years, been an 
exemplary Christian. When I was a youth I took 
some pains to learn her to read ; this is now a 
great consolation to her. Since age and infirmity 
have rendered her of little value to her " owners, 
she is permitted to read as much as she pleases ; 
this she can do, with the aid of glasses, in the old 
family Bible, which is almost the only book she 
has ever looked into. This, with somo little 
mending for the black children, is all she does ; 
she is still held as a slave. I well remember what 
a heart-rending scene there was in the family when 
my father sold her husband; this was, I suppose, 
thirty-five years ago. And yet my father was 
considered one of the best of masters. I know 
of few who were better, but of many who were 
worse. 



With regard to the intelligence of George, 
and his teaching himself to read and write, 
there is a most interesting and affecting 
parallel to it in the "Life of Frederick 
Douglass," — a book which can be recom- 
mended to any one who has a curiosity to 
trace the workings of an intelligent and ac- 
tive mind through all the squalid misery, 
degradation and oppression, of slavery. A 
few incidents will be given. 

Like Clark, Douglass was the son of a 
white man. lie was a plantation slave in n 
proud old family. His situation, probably, 
may be considered as an average one ; that 
is to say, he led a life of dirt, degradation, 
discomfort of various kinds, made tolerable 
as a matter of daily habit, and considered 
as enviable in comparison with the lot of 
those who suffer worse abuse. An incident 
which Douglass relates of his mother is 
touching- He states that it is customary 
at an early age tc separate mothers from 
their children, for the purpose of blunting 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



and deadening natural affection. When he 
was three years old his mother was sent to 
*work on a plantation eight or ten miles dis- 
tant, and after that he never saw her except 
in the night. After her day's toil she 
would occasionally walk over to her child, 
lie down with him in her arms, hush him to 
sleep in her bosom, then rise up and walk 
back again to be ready for her field work 
by daylight. Now, we ask the highest- 
born lady in England or America, who is a 
mother, whether this does not show that 
this poor field- laborer had in her bosom, 
beneath her dirt and rags, a true mother's 
heart ? 

The last and bitterest indignity which 
has been heaped on the head of the un- 
happy slaves has been the denial to them of 
those holy affections which God gives alike 
to all. We are told, in fine phrase, by lan- 
guid ladies of fashion, that " it is not to be 
supposed that those creatures have the same 
feelings that we have," when, perhaps, the 
very speaker could not endure one tithe of 
the fatigue and suffering which the slave- 
mother often bears for her child. Every 
mother who has a mother's heart within her, 
ought to know that this is blasphemy against 
nature, and, standing between the cradle of 
her living and the grave of her dead child, 
should indignantly reject such a slander on 
all motherhood. 

Douglass thus relates the account of his 
learning to read, after he had been removed 
to the situation of house-servant in Balti- 
more. 

It seems that his mistress, newly married 
and unaccustomed to the management of 
slaves, was very kind to him, and, among 
other acts of kindness., commenced teaching 
him to read. His master, discovering what 
was going on, he says, 

At once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me fur- 
ther, telling her, among other things, that it was 
unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to 
read. To use his own words, further, he said, 
" If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. 
A nigger should know nothing but to obey his 
master — to do as he is told to do. Learning 
would spoil the best nigger in the world. Now," 
said he. " if you teach that nigger (speaking of 
myself) how to read, there would be no keeping 
him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. 
He would at once become unmanageable, and of 
no value to his master. As to himself, it could 
do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It 
would make him discontented and unhappy." 
These words sank deep into my heart, stirred up 
sentiments within that lay slumbering, and called 
into existence an entirely new train of thought. 
It was a new and special revelation, explaining 
dark and mysterious things, with which my youth- 

2 



17 

ful understanding had struggled, but struggled in 
vain. I now understood what had been to me 
a most perplexing difficulty — to wit, the white 
man's power to enslave the black man. It was a 
grand achievement, and I prized it highly. From 
that moment, I understood the pathway from slav- 
ery to freedom. 

After this, his mistress was as watchful to 
prevent his learning to read as she had 
before been to instruct him. His course 
after this he thus describes : 

From this time I was most narrowly watched. 
If I was in a separate room any considerable 
length of time, I was sure to be suspected of hav- 
ing a book, and was at once called to give an ac- 
count of myself. All this, however, was too late. 
The first step had been taken. Mistress, in teach- 
ing me the alphabet, had given me the inch, and no 
precaution could prevent me from taking the el/. 

The plan which I adopted, and the one by which 
I was most successful, was that of making' friend* 
of all the little white boys whom T met in the 
street. As many of these as I could I converted 
into teachers. With their kindly aid, obtained at 
different times and in different places, I finally suc- 
ceeded in learning to read. When I was sent of 
errands I always took my book with me, and by 
going one part of my errand quickly, I found time 
to get a lesson before my return. I used also to 
carry bread with me, enough of which was always 
in the house, and to which I was always welcome : 
for I was much better off in this regard than many 
of" the poor white children in our neighborhood. 
This bread I used to bestow upon the hungry little 
urchins, who, in return, would give me that more 
valuable bread of knowledge. I am strongly 
tempted to give the names of two or three of those 
little boys, as a testimonial of the gratitude and 
aflectionl bear them; but prudence forbids; — 
not that itrwould injure me, but it might embarrass 
them ; for it is almost an unpardonable offence to 
teach slaves to read in this Christian country. It 
is enough to say of the dear little fellows, that 
they lived on Philpot-street, very near Durgin and 
Bailey's ship-yard. I used to talk this matter of 
slavery over with them. I would sometimes say 
to them I wished I could be as free as they would 
be when they got to be men. " You will* be free 
as soon as you are twenty-one, but I am a slave for 
life ! Have not I as good a right to be free as you 
have 1" -These words used to trouble them ; thev 
would express for me the liveliest sympathy, and 
console me with the hope that something would 
occur by which I might be free. 

I was now about twelve years old, and the 
thought of being a slave for life began to bear 
heavily upon my heart. Just about this time I 
got hold of a book entitled " The Columbian Ora- 
tor." Every opportunity I got I used to read this 
book. Among much of other interesting matter, 
I found in it a dialogue between a master and his 
slave. The slave was represented as having run 
away from his master three times. The dialogue 
represented the conversation which took place be- 
tween them when the slave was retaken the third 
time. In this dialogue, the whole argument in 
behalf of slavery was brought forward by the 
master, all of which was disposed of by the slave. 
The slave was made to say some very smart as 
well as impressive things in reply to his master-. 



18 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



— things which had the desired though unex- 
pected effect ; for the conversation resulted in the 
voluntary emancipation of the Blave on the part 
of the master. 

In the same book I met with one of Sheridan's 
mighty speeches on and in behalf of Catholic 
emancipation. These were choice documents to 
me. I read them over and over again, with un- 
abated interest. They gave tongue to interesting 
thoughts of my own soul, which had frequently 
flashed through my mind, and died away for want 
of utterance. The moral which I gained from the 
dialogue was the power of truth over the con- 
science of even a slave-holder. What I got from 
Sheridan was a bold denunciation of slavery, and 
a powerful vindication of human rights. The 
reading of these documents enabled me to utter 
my thoughts, and to meet the arguments brought 
forward to sustain slavery ; but, while they re- 
lieved me of one difficulty, they brought on another 
even more painful than the one of which I was 
relieved. The more I read, the more I was led to 
abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard 
them in no other light than a band of successful 
robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to 
Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a 
strange land reduced us to slavery. I loathed 
them as being the meanest as well as the most 
wicked of men. As I read and contemplated the 
subject, behold ! that very discontentment which 
Master Hugh had predicted would follow my 
learning to read had already come, to torment and 
sting my soul to unutterable anguish. As I 
writhed under it, I would at times feel that learn- 
ing to read had been a curse rather than a bless- 
ing. It had given me a view of my wretched con- 
dition without the remedy. It opened my eyes to 
the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to 
get out. In moments of agony I envied my 
fellow-slaves for their stupidity. I have often 
wished myself a beast. I preferred the condition 
of the meanest reptile to my own. Anything, no 
matter what, to get rid of thinking ! It was this 
everlasting thinking of my condition that tor- 
mented me. There was no getting rid of it. It 
was pressed upon me by every object within Bight 
or hearing, animate or inanimate. The silver 
trump of freedom had roused my soul to eternal 
wakefulness. Freedom now appeared, to disap- 
pear no more forover. It was heard in every 
sound, and seen in every thing. It was ever pres- 
ent to torment me with a sense of my wretched 
condition. I saw nothing without seeing it, I 
heard nothing without hearing it, and felt nothing 
without feeling it. It looked from every star, it 
smiled in every calm, breathed in every wind, and 
moved in every storm. 

I often (bund myself regretting my own exist- 
ence, and wishing myself dead ; and but fir the 
hope of being free, 1 have no doubt but that 1 
should have killed myself, or done something for 
which I should have been killed. While in this 
State of mind I was eager to hear any one speak 

of slavery. 1 was a ready Listener, Every little 
while 1 eonld bear something about the abolition- 
ists. It was some time before 1 found what the 
Word meant. It was always used in BUOh COnnec 
tions as to make it an interesting word to me. If 
a Blave ran away and sue< <le<| in getting clear, 

Or if a slave killed his master, set fire to a barn. 

or did anything very wrong in the mind of a slave- 
holder, it was spoken of as the fruit of abolition. 
Hearing the word in this connection very often. 1 



set about learning what it meant. The dictionary 
afforded me little or no help. I found it was " the 
act of abolishing ;" but then I did not know what 
was to be abolished. Here I was perplexed. I 
did not dare to ask any one about its meaning, 
for I was satisfied that it was something they 
wanted me to know very little about. After a 
patient waiting, I got one of our city papers, con- 
taining an account of the number of petitions from 
the North praying for the abolition of slavery in 
the District of Columbia, and of the slave-trade 
between the states. From this time I understood 
the words abolition and abolitionist, and always 
drew near when that word was spoken, expecting 
to hear something of importance to myself and 
fellow-slaves. The light broke in upon me by de- 
grees. I went one day down on the wharf of Mr. 
Waters ; and, seeing two Irishmen unloading a 
scow of stone, I went, unasked, and helped them. 
When we had finished, one of them came to me 
and asked me if I were a slave. I told him I was. 
He asked, " Are ye a slave for life ?" I told him 
that I was. The good Irishman seemed to be 
deeply affected by the statement. He said to the 
other that it was a pity so fine a little fellow as my- 
self should be a slave for life. He said it was a 
shame to hold me. They both advised me to run 
away to the North ; that I should find friends there, 
and that I should be free. I pretended not to be 
interested in what they said, and treated them as 
if I did not understand them ; for I feared they 
might be treacherous. White men have been 
known to encourage slaves to escape, and then, to 
get the reward, catch them and return them to 
their masters. I was afraid that these seemingly 
good men might use me so ; but I nevertheless 
remembered their advice, and from that time Ire- 
solved to run away. I looked forward to a time 
at which it would be safe for me to escape. I 
was too young to think of doing so immediately ; 
besides, 1 wished to learn how to write, as I might 
have occasion to write my own pass. I consoled 
myself with the hope that I should one day find a 
good chance. Meanwhile I would learn to write. 
The idea as to how I might learn to write was 
suggested to me by being in Durgin and Bailey's 
ship-yard, and frequently seeing the ship carpen- 
ters, after hewing and gutting a piece of timber 
ready for use, write on the timber the name of 
that part of the ship for which it was intended. 
When a piece of timber was intended for the lar- 
board side it would lie marked thus — "L." 
When a piece was for the starboard side it would 
be marked thus — " S." A piece for the larboard 
side forward would be marked thus — '• L. F." 
When a piece was for starboard side forward it 
would lie marked thus — " S. F." For larboard 
aft it would be marked thus — "L. A." For 
starboard aft it would be marked thus — " S. A." 
I soon learned the names of these letters, and for 
what they were intended when placed upon a 
piece of timber in the ship-yard. I immediately 
commenced copying them, and in a short time was 
able to make the four Letters named. After that, 
when I met with any boy who I knew could write, 
I would tell him I could write as well as he. The 
next word would be, " 1 don't believe you. Lot 
me sec von try it."' I would then make the let- 
ters which 1 had been so fortunate as to learn, 
and ask him to beat that In tins way I got a 
good many lessons in writing, which it is quite 
possible I should never have gotten in any other 
way. During this time my copy-book was tha 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



19 



board fence, brick wall and pavement ; my pen 
and ink was a lump of chalk. With these I 
learned mainly how to write. I then commenced 
and continued copying the Italics in Webster's 
Spelling-book, until I could make them all with- 
out looking on the book. By this time my little 
Master Thomas had gone to school and learned 
how to write, and had written over a number of 
copy-books. These had been brought home, and 
shown to some of our near neighbors, and then 
laid aside. My mistress used to go to class-meet- 
ing at the Wilk-street meeting-house every Mon- 
day afternoon, and leave me to take care of the 
house. When left thus I used to spend the time 
in writing in the spaces left in Master Thomas' 
copy-book, copying what he had written. I con- 
tinued to do this until I could write a hand very 
similar to that of Master Thomas. Thus, after a 
long, tedious effort for years. I finally succeeded 
in learning how to write. 

These few quoted incidents will show 
that the case of George Harris is by no 
means so uncommon as might be supposed. 

Let the reader peruse the account which 
George Harris gives of the sale of his 
mother and her children, and then read the 
following account given by the venerable 
Josiah Henson, now pastor of the mission- 
ary settlement at Dawn, in Canada. 

After the death of his master, he says, 
the slaves of the plantation were all put up 
at auction and sold to the highest bidder. 

My brothers and sisters were bid off one by one, 
while my mother, holding my hand, looked on in 
an agony of grief, the cause of which I but ill 
understood at first, but which dawned on my mind 
with dreadful clearness as the sale proceeded. My 
mother was then separated from me, and put up 
in her turn. She was bought by a man named 
Isaac R. , residing in Montgomery County [Mary- 
land], and then I was offered to the assembled pur- 
chasers. My mother, half distracted with the 
parting forever from all her children, pushed 
through the crowd, while the bidding for me was 
going on, to the spot where R. was standing. She 
fell at his feet, and clung to his knees, entreating 
him, in tones that a mother only could command, 
to buy her baby as well as herself, and spare to her 
one of her little ones at least. Will it, can it be 
believed, that this man, thus appealed to, was 
capable not merely of turning a deaf ear to her 
supplication, but of disengaging himself from her 
with such violent blows and kicks as to reduce 
her to the necessity of creeping out of his reach, 
and mingling the groan of bodily suffering with 
the sob of a breaking heart 1 

Now, all these incidents that have been 
given are real incidents of slavery, related 
by those who know slavery by the best of 
all tests — experience ; and they are given 
by men who have earned a character in free- 
dom which makes their word as good as the 
■word of any man living. 

The case of Lews Clark might be called 
a harder one than common. The case of 



Douglass is probably a very fair average 
specimen. 

The writer has conversed, in her time, with 
a very considerable number of liberated 
slaves, many of whom stated that their own 
individual lot had been comparatively a mild 
one ; but she never talked with one who 
did not let fall, first or last, some incident 
which he had observed, some scene which 
he had witnessed, which went to show some 
most horrible abuse of the system ; and, 
what was most affecting about it, the nar- 
rator often evidently considered it so much a 
matter of course as to mention it incident- 
ally, without any particular emotion. 

It is supposed by many that the great 
outcry among those who are opposed to 
slavery comes from a morbid reading of 
unauthenticated accounts gotten up in 
abolition papers, &c. This idea is a very 
mistaken one. The accounts which tell 
against the slave-system are derived from 
the continual living testimony of the poor 
slave himself; often from that of the fugi- 
tives from slavery who are continually pass- 
ing through our Northern cities. 

As a specimen of some of the incidents 
thus developed, is given the following fact 
of recent occurrence, related to the author 
by a lady in Boston. This lady, who was 
much in the habit of visiting the poor, was 
sent for, a month or two since, to see a 
mulatto woman who had just arrived at a 
colored boarding-house near by, and who 
appeared to be in much dejection of mind. 
A little conversation showed her to be a fu- 
gitive. Her history was as follows : She, 
with her brother, were, as is often the case, 
both the children and slaves of their master. 
At his death they were left to his legitimate 
daughter as her servants, and treated with 
as much consideration as very common kind 
of people might be expected to show to those 
who were entirely and in every respect at 
their disposal. 

The wife of her brother ran away to 
Canada ; and as there was some talk of sell- 
ing her and her child, in consequence of 
some embarrassment in the family affairs, 
her brother, a fine-spirited young man, de- 
termined to effect her escape, also, to a land 
of liberty. He concealed her for some time 
in the back part of an obscure dwelling in 
the city, till he could find an opportunity 
to send her off. While she was in this re- 
treat, he was indefatigable in his attentions 
to her," frequently bringing her fruit and 
flowers, and doing everytliing he could to 
beguile the weariness of her imprisonment. 



20 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



At length, the steward of a vessel, -whom 
he had obliged, offered to conceal him on 
board the ship, and give him a chance to 
escape. The noble-hearted fellow, though 
tempted by an offer which would enable 
him immediately to join his wife, to whom 
he was tenderly attached, preferred to give 
this offer to his sister, and during the ab- 
sence of the captain of the vessel she and 
her child were brought on board and se- 
creted. 

The captain, when he returned and dis- 
covered what had been done, was very 
angry, as the thing, if detected, would 
have involved him in very serious difficul- 
ties. He declared, at first, that he would 
send the woman up into town to jail ; but, 
by her entreaties and those of the steward, 
was induced to wait till evening, and send 
word to her brother to come and take her 
back. After dark the brother came on 
board, and, instead of taking his sister 
away, began to appeal to the humanity of 
the captain in the most moving terms. He 
told his sister's history and his own, and 
pleaded eloquently his desire for her liberty. 
The captain had determined to be obdurate, 
but, alas ! he was only a man. Perhaps 
he had himself a wife and child, — perhaps 
he felt that, were he in the young man's 
case, lie would do just so for his sister. Be 
it as it may, he was at last overcome. He 
said to the young man, " I must send you 
away from my ship ; I '11 put off a boat 
and see you got into it, and you must row 
off, and never let me see your faces again; 
and if, after all, you should come back and 
get on board, it will be your fault, and not 
mine." 

So, in the Tain and darkness, the young 
man and his sister and child were lowered 
over the side of the vessel, and rowed away. 
After a while the ship weighed anchor, but 
before she reached Boston it was discovered 
that the woman and child were on board. 

The lady to whom this story was related 
was requested to write a letter, in certain 
terms, to a person in the city whence the 
fugitive had come, to let the brother know 
of her safe arrival. 

The fugitive was furnished with work, 
by which she could support herself and 
child, and the lady carefully attended to her 
wants for a few weeks. 

One morning she came in, with a cood 
deal of agitation, exclaiming, " 0, ma'am, 
he's come ! George is come ! " And in a 
few minutes the young man was introduced 

The lady who gave this relation belongs 



to the first circles of Boston society ; she 
says that she never was more impressed by 
the personal manners of any gentleman 
than by those of this fugitive brother. So 
much did he have the air of a perfect, fin- 
ished gentleman, that she felt she could not 
question him with regard to his escape with 
the familiarity with which persons of his 
condition are commonly approached ; and it 
was not till he requested her to write a let- 
ter for him, because he could not write 
himself, that she could realize that this 
fine specimen of manhood had been all his 
life a slave. 

The remainder of the history is no less 
romantic. The lady had a friend in Mont- 
real, whither George's wife had gone ; and, 
after furnishing money to pay their ex- 
penses, she presented them with a letter to 
this gentleman, requesting the latter to 
assist the young man in finding his wife. 
When they landed at Montreal, George 
stepped on shore and presented this letter 
to the first man he met, asking him if he 
knew to whom it was directed. The gen- 
tleman proved to be the very person to 
whom the letter was addressed. He knew 
George's wife, brought him to her without 
delay, so that, by return mail, the lady had 
the satisfaction of learning the happy termi- 
nation of the adventure. 

This is but a specimen of histories which 
are continually transpiring; so that those 
who speak of slavery can say, " We speak 
that which we do know, and testify that we 
have seen." 

But we shall be told the slaves are all a 
lying race, and that these are lies which they 
tell us. There are some things, however, 
about these slaves, which cannot lie. Those 
deep lines of patient sorrow upon the face ; 
that attitude of crouching and humble sub- 
jection ; that sad, habitual expression of 
hope deferred, in the eye, — would tell their 
story, if the slave never spoke. 

It is not long since the writer lias seen 
faces such as might haunt one's dreams for 
weeks. 

Suppose a poor, worn-out mother, sickly. 
feeble and old, — her hands worn to the bone 
with hard, unpaid toil, — whose nine children 
have been sold to the slave-trader, and 
whose tenth soon is to be sold, unless by her 
labor as washer-woman she can raise nine 
hundred dollars ! Such are the kind of cases 
constantly coming to one's knowledge, — 
such arc the witnesses which will not let us 
sleep. 

Doubt has been expressed whether such 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



21 



a thing as an advertisement for a man. 
" dead or alive" like the advertisement for 
George Harris, was ever published in the 
Southern States. The scene of the story in 
which that occurs is supposed to be laid a 
few years back, at the time when the black 
laws of Ohio were passed. That at this 
time such advertisements were common in 
the newspapers, there is abundant evidence. 
That they are less common now, is a matter 
of hope and gratulation. 

In the year 1839, Mr. Theodore D. 
Weld made a systematic attempt to collect 
and arrange the statistics of slavery. A 
mass of facts and statistics was gathered, 
which were authenticated with the most 
unquestionable accuracy. Some of the 
" one thousand witnesses," whom he brings 
upon the stand, were ministers, lawyers, 
merchants, and men of various other call- 
ings, who were either natives of the slave 
states, or had been residents there for many 
years of their life. Many of these were 
slave-holders. Others of the witnesses 
were, or had been, slave-drivers, or officers of 
coasting-vessels engaged in the slave-trade. 

Another part of his evidence was gath- 
ered from public speeches in Congress, in 
the state legislatures, and elsewhere. But 
the majority of it was taken from recent 
newspapers. 

The papers from which these facts were 
copied were preserved and put on file in a 
public place, where they remained for some 
years, for the information of the curious. 
After Mr. Weld's book was completed, a 
copy of it was sent, through the mail, to 
every editor from whose paper such adver- 
tisements had been taken, and to every in- 
dividual of whom any facts had been nar- 
rated, with the passages which concerned 
them marked. 

It is quite possible that this may have 
had some influence in rendering such ad- 
vertisements less common. Men of sense 
often go on doing a thing which is very 
absurd, or even inhuman, simply because it 
has always been done before them, and they 
follow general custom, without much reflec- 
tion. When their attention, however, is 
called to it by a stranger who sees the 
thing from another point of view, they be- 
come immediately sensible of the improprie- 
ty of the practice, and discontinue it. The 
reader will, however, be pained to notice, 
when he comes to the legal part of the book, 
that even in some of the largest cities of our 
slave states this barbarity had not been en- 
tirely discontinued, in the year 1850. 



The list of advertisements in Mr. Weld's 
book is here inserted, not to weary the 
reader with its painful details, but that, by 
running his eye over the dates of the papers 
quoted, and the places of their publication, 
he may form a fair estimate of the extent to 
which this atrocity was publicly practised : 

The Wilmington (North Carolina) Advertiser of 
July 13, 1838, contains the following advertise- 
ment : 

" $100 will be paid to any person who may ap- 
prehend and safely confine in any jail-in this state 
a certain negro man, named Alfred. And the 
same reward will be paid, if satisfactory evidence 
is given of his having been killed. He has one or 
more scars on one of his hands, caused by his hav- 
ing been shot. The Citizens of Onslow. 

" Richlands, Onslow Co., May 16, 1838." 

In the same column with the above, and direct- 
ly under it, is the following : 

" Ranawat, my negro man Richard. A reward 
of $25 will be paid for his apprehension, DEAD 
or ALIVE. Satisfactory proof will only be re- 
quired of his being KILLED. He has with 
him, in all probability, his wife, Eliza, who ran 
away from Col. Thompson, now a resident of Ala- 
bama, about the time he commenced his journey 
to that state. Durant II. Rhodes." 

In the Macon (Georgia) Telegraph, May 28, is 
the following : 

" About the 1st of March last the negro man 
Ransom left me without the least provocation 
whatever ; I will give a reward of twenty dollars 
for said negro, if taken, dead or alive, — and if 
killed in any attempt, an advance of five dollars 
will be paid. Bryant Johnson. 

"Crawford Co., Georgia." 

See the Newborn (N. C.) Spectator, Jan. 5, 1838, 
for the following : 

" RAN AW AY from the subscriber, a negro 
man named SAMPSON. Fifty dollars reward 
will be given for the delivery of him to me, or his 
confinement in any jail, so that I get him ; 
and should he resist in being taken, so that vio- 
lence is necessary to arrest him, I will not hold 
any person liaflle for damages should the slave be 
killed. Enoch Foy. 

"Jones Co., N C." 

From the Charleston (S. C.) Courier, Feb. 20, 
1836: 

" $300 REWARD. — Ranaway from the sub- 
scriber, in November last, his two negro men, 
named Billy and Pompey. 

" Billy is 25 years old, and is known as the 
patroon of my boat for many years ; in all proba- 
bility he may resist ; in that event 50 dollars will 
be paid for his HEAD." 



CHAPTER V. 

ELIZA. 

The writer stated in her book that Eliza 
was a portrait drawn from life. The inci- 



22 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



dent which brought the original to her 
notice may be simply narrated. 

While the writer was travelling in Ken- 
tucky, many years ago, she attended church 
in a small country town. While there, her 
attention was called to a beautiful quadroon 
girl, who sat in one of the slips of the church, 
and appeared to have charge of some young 
children. The description of Eliza may 
suffice for a description of her. When the 
author returned from church, she inquired 
about the girl, and was told that she was as 
good and amiable as she was beautiful ; that 
she was a pious girl, and a member of the 
church; and, finally, that she was owned 
by Mr. So-and-so. The idea that this girl 
was a slave struck a chill to her heart, and 
she said, earnestly, " 0, I hope they treat 
her kindly." 

"0, certainly," was the reply; "they 
think as much of her as of their own chil- 
dren." 

" I hope they will never sell her," said a 
person in the company. 

"Certainly they will not; a Southern 
gentleman, not long ago, offered her master 
a thousand dollars for her ; but he told him 
that she was too good to be his wife, and he 
certainly should not have her for a mis- 
tress." 

This is all that the writer knows of that 
girl. 

With regard to the incident of Eliza's 
crossing the river on the ice, — as the possi- 
bility of the thing has been disputed. — the 
writer gives the following circumstance in 
confirmation. 

Last spring, while the author was in New 
York, a Presbyterian clergyman, of Ohio. 
came to her, and said, "I understand they 
dispute that fact about the woman's crossing 
the river. Now, I know all about that, for 
I got the story from the very man that 
helped her up the bank. I know it is true, 
for she u now living in Canada." 

It has been objected that the representa- 
tion of the scene in which the plan for kid- 
napping Eliza, concocted by Haley, Marks 
and Lokcr, at the tavern, is a gross carica- 
ture on the state of things in Ohio. 

What knowledge the author has had of 
the facilities which some justices of the 
peace, under the old fugitive law of Ohio, 
were in the habit of giving to kidnapping, 
may be inferred by comparing the statement 
in her book with some in her personal knowl- 
edge. 

"Ye sco," said Marks to Haley, stirring his 



punch as he did so, " ye see, we has justices con- 
venient at all p'ints along shore, that does up any 
little jobs in our line quite reasonable. Tom, he 
does the knockin' down, and that ar ; and I come 
in all dressed up, — shining boots, — everything 
first chop, — when the swearin' 's to be done. You 
oughter see me, now !" said Marks, in a glow of 
professional pride, " how I can tone it off. One 
day I 'm Mr. Twickem, from New Orleans ; 
'neither day, I 'm just come from my plantation on 
Pearl river, where I works seven hundred nig- 
gers ; then, again, I come out a distant relation 
to Henry Clay, or some old cock in Kentuck. 
Talents 'is different, you know. Now, Tom 's a 
roarer when there 's any thumping or fighting to 
he done; but at lying he an't good, Tom an't; 
ye see it don't come natural to him ; but, Lord! 
if thar 's a feller in the country that can swear to 
anything and everything, and put in all the cir- 
cumstances and flourishes with a longer face, and 
carry 't through better 'n I can, why, I 'd like to 
see him, that 's all ! I b'lieve, my heart, I could 
get along, and make through, even if justices 
were more particular than they is. Sometimes I 
rather wish they was more particular ; 't would 
be a heap more relishin' if they was, — more fun, 
yer know." 

In the year 1839, the writer received 
into her family, as a servant, a girl from 
Kentucky. She had been the slave of one 
of the lowest and most brutal families, with 
whom she had been brought up, in a log- 
cabin, in a state of half-barbarism. In pro- 
ceeding to give her religious instruction, the 
author heard, for the first time in her life, 
an inquiry which she had not supposed pos- 
sible to be made in America: — "Who is 
Jesus Christ, now, anyhow?" 

When the author told her the history of 
the love and life and death of Christ, the 
girl seemed wholly overcome ; tears streamed 
down her cheeks ; and she exclaimed, pite- 
ously, "Why didn't nobody never tell me 
this before'?" 

"But," said the writer to her, "have n't 
you ever seen the Bible? " 

"Yes, I have seen missus a-readin' on 't 
sometimes ; but, law Bakes ! she 's just 
a-readin' on 't 'cause she could ; don't s'pose 
it did her no good, no way." 

She said she had been to one or two camp- 
meetings in her life r but " did n't notice very 
particular." 

At all events, the story certainly made 
great impression on her, and had such an 
effect in improving her conduct, that the 
writer had great hopes of her. 

On inquiring into her history, it was dis- 
covered that, by the laws of Ohio, she was 
legally entitled to her freedom, from the 
fact of her having been brought into the 
state, and left there, temporarily, by the 
consent of her mistress. These facits being 



KEY TO UNCLE TOMS CABIN. 



23 



properly authenticated before the proper 
authorities, papers attesting her freedom 
were drawn up, and it was now supposed 
that all danger of pursuit was over. After 
she had remained in the family for some 
months, word was sent, from various sources, 
to Professor Stowe, that the girl's young 
master was over, looking for her, and that, 
if care were not taken, she would be con- 
veyed back into slavery. 

Professor Stowe called on the magistrate 
who had authenticated her papers, and 
inquired whether they were not sufficient to 
protect her. The reply was, " Certainly 
they are, in law, if she could have a fair 
hearing ; but they will come to your house 
in the night, with an officer and a warrant ; 

they will take her before Justice D , 

and swear to her. He 's the man that does 
all this kind of business, and he '11 deliver 
her up, and thei*e '11 be an end to it." 

Mr. Stowe then inquired what could be 
done ; and was recommended to carry her to 
some place of security till the inquiry for 
her was over. Accordingly, that night, a 
brother of the author, with Professor Stowe, 
performed for the fugitive that office which 
the senator is represented as performing for 
Eliza. They drove about ten miles on a 
solitary road, crossed the creek at a very 
dangerous fording, and presented themselves, 
at midnight, at the house of John Van 
Zandt, a noble-minded Kentuckian, who had 
performed the good deed which the author, 
in her story, ascribes to Van Tromp. 

After some rapping at the door, the wor- 
thy owner of the mansion appeared, candle 
in hand, as has been narrated. 

"Are you the man that would save a 
poor colored girl from kidnappers?" was the 
first question. 

" Guess I am," was the prompt response ; 
"where is she?" 

"Why, she's here." 

" But how did you come 1 " 

"I crossed the creek." 

" Why, the Lord helped you ! " said he ; 
"I shouldn't dare cross it myself in the 
night. A man and his wife, and five chil- 
dren, were drowned there, a little while 
ago." 

The reader may be interested to know 
that the poor girl never was re-taken ; that 
she married well in Cincinnati, is a very 
respectable woman, and the mother of a 
large family of children. 



CHAPTER VI. 

UNCLE TOM. 

The character of Uncle Tom has been 
objected to as improbable ; and yet the 
writer has received more confirmations of 
that character, and from a greater variety 
of sources, than of any other in the book. 

Many people have said to her, " I knew 
an Uncle Tom in such and such a Southern 
State." All the histories of this kind which 
have thus been related to her would of 
themselves, if collected, make a small vol- 
ume. The author will relate a few of them. 

While visiting in an obscure town in 
Maine, in the family of a friend, the conver- 
sation happened to turn upon this subject, 
and the gentleman with whose family she 
was staying related the following. He said 
that, when on a visit to his brother, in New 
Orleans, some years before, he found in his 
possession a most valuable negro man, of 
such remarkable probity and honesty that 
his brother literally trusted him with all he 
had. He had frequently seen him take out 
a handful of bills, without looking at them, 
and hand them to this servant, bidding him 
go and provide what was necessary for the 
family, and bring him the change. He 
remonstrated with his brother on this impru- 
dence ; but the latter replied that he had had 
such proof of this servant's impregnable con- 
scientiousness that he felt it safe to trust 
him to any extent. 

The history of the servant was this. He 
had belonged to a man in Baltimore, who, 
having a general prejudice against all the 
religious exercises of slaves, did all that he 
could to prevent his having any time for 
devotional duties, and strictly forbade him 
to read the Bible and pray, either by him- 
self, or with the other servants ; and because, 
like a certain man of old, named Daniel, he 
constantly disobeyed this unchristian edict, 
his master inflicted upon him that punish- 
ment which a master always has in his 
power to inflict, — he sold him into perpet- 
ual exile from his wife and children, down to 
New Orleans. 

The gentleman who gave the writer this in- 
formation says that, although not himself a 
religious man at the time, he was so struck 
with the man's piety that he said to his 
brother, " I hope you will never do anything 
to deprive this man of his religious privi- 
leges, for I think a judgment will come upon 
you if you do." To this his brother replied 
that he should be very foolish to do it, since 



24 



KEY* TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 



he had made up his mind that the man's 
religion was the root of his extraordinary 
excellences. 

Some time since, there was sent to the 
writer from the South, through the mail, a 
little book, entitled, " Sketches of Old Vir- 
ginia Family Servants," with a preface by 
Bishop Meade. The book contains an 
account of the following servants : African 
Bella, Old Milly, Blind Lucy, Aunt Betty, 
Springfield Bob, Mammy Chris, Diana 
Washington, Aunt Margaret, Rachel Par- 
ker, Nelly Jackson, My Own Mammy, Aunt 
Beck. 

The following extract from Bishop Meade's 
preface may not be uninteresting. 

The following sketches were placed in my hands 
with a request that I would examine them with a 
view to publication. 

After reading them I could not but think that 
they would be both pleasing and edifying. 

Very many such examples of fidelity and piety 
might be added from the old Virginia families. 
These will suffice as specimens, and will serve to 
show how interesting the relation between master 
and servant often is. 

Many will doubtless be surprised to find that 
there was so much intelligence, as well as piety, in 
some of the old servants of Virginia, and that they 
had learned to read the Sacred Scriptures, so as to 
be useful in this way among their fellow-servants. 
It is, and always has been true, in regard to the 
servants of the Southern States, that although 
public schools may have been prohibited, yet no 
interference has been attempted, where the own- 
ers have chosen to teach their servants, or permit 
them to learn in a private way, how to read 
God's word. Accordingly, there always have 
been some who were thus taught. In the more 
southern states the number of these' has most 
abounded. Of this fact I became well assured, 
about thirty years since, when visiting the Atlan- 
tic states, with a view to the formation of auxil- 
iary colonization societies, and the selection of 
the first colonists for Africa. In the city of 
Charleston, South Carolina, I found more intelli- 
gence and character among the free colored popu- 
lation than anywhere else. The same was true 
(if some of those in bondage. A respectable num- 
ber might be seen in certain parts of the Episco- 
pal churches which I attended using their prayer- 
books, and joining in tin- responses "1' tin- church. 
Many purposes of convenience and hospitality 
were subserved by this encouragement of cultiva- 
tion in Home of the servants, on the part of the 
owners. 

W'lii'ii travelling many years since with a sick 

will-, and two female relatives, from Charleston 
to Virginia, at a period of the year when many of 
the families from tin' country rosorl to I he town for 
health, we were kindly urged to call at the seal 
of one of the Brat families in South Carolina, and 
a letter from the mistress, then in the city, was 
given ns, to hex Bervant, who had charge of, the 
house in the absence of the family. Onreaching 
there and delivering the letter to a most respect- 
able-looking female servant, who immediately read 
it. we wen: kindly welcomed, and entertained, 



during a part of two days, as sumptuously as 
though the owner had been present. We un- 
derstood that it was no uncommon thing in South 
Carolina for travellers to be thus entertained by 
the servants in the absence of the owners, on re- 
ceiving letters from the same. 

Instances of confidential and affectionate rela- 
tionship between servants and their masters and 
mistresses, such as are set forth in the following 
Sketches, are still to be found in all the slave- 
holding states. I mention one, which has come 
under my own observation. The late Judge Up- 
shur, of Virginia, had a faithful house-servant 
(by his will now set free), with whom he used to 
correspond on matters of business, when he was 
absent on his circuit. I was dining at bis house, 
some years since, with a number of persons, him- 
self being absent, when the conversation turned on 
the subject of the presidential election, then 
going on through the United States, and about 
which there was an intense interest ; when his 
servant informed us that he had that day received 
a letter from his master, then on the western 
shore, in which he stated that the friends of Gen- 
eral Harrison might be relieved from all uneasi- 
ness, as the returns already received made hia 
election quite certain. 

Of course it is not to be supposed that we de- 
sign to convey the impression that such instances 
are numerous, the nature of the relationship for- 
bidding it ; but we do mean emphatically t» 
affirm that there is far more of kindly and Chris- 
tian intercourse than many at a distance are apt 
to believe. That there is a great and sad want of 
Christian instruction, notwithstanding the more 
recent efforts put forth to impart it, we most 
sorrowfully acknowledge. 

Bishop Meade adds that these sketches 
are published with the hope that they might 
have the effect of turning the attention of 
ministers and heads of families more seri- 
ously to the duty of caring for the souls of 
their servants. 

With regard to the servant of Judge Up- 
shur, spoken of in this communication of 
Bishop Meade, his master has left, in his 
last will, the following remarkable tribute to 
his worth and excellence of character : 

I emancipate and set free my servant, David 
Rice, and direct my executors to give him onchurt- 
iln il dollars. I recommend liim in the strongest 
manner to the respect, esteem and confidence, of 
any community in which he may happen to live, 
lie lias been my slave for twenty-four years, dur- 
ing all which time he has been trusted to every 
extent, and in every respect ; my confidence in 
him lias been unbounded ; his relation to myself 
and family lias always beonsuch as to afford him 
daily opportunities to deceive and injure us, yet 
he has never been detected in any serious fault, 
nor even in an unintentional breach of the deco- 
rum of his station. His intelligence is of a high 
order, his integrity above all suspicion, and his 
Bense of right and propriety correct, and even 
refined. I reel that he is justly entitled to carry 
this certificate from me in the new relations which 
he must now form ; it is due to his long and most 
faithful services, and to the sincere and steady 
friendship which I beat to him In the uuinter- 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



25 



rupted confidential intercourse of twenty-four 
years, I have never given him, nor had occasion 
to give him, one unpleasant word. I know no 
man who has fewer faults or more excellences 
than he. 

In the free states there have been a few 
instances of such extraordinary piety among 
negroes, that their biography and sayings 
have been collected in religious tracts, and 
published for the instruction of the commu- 
nity. 

One of these was, before his conversion, a 
convict in a state-prison in New York, and 
there received what was, perhaps, the first 
religious instruction that had ever been im- 
parted to him. He became so eminent an 
example of humility, faith, and, above all, 
fervent love, that his presence in the neigh- 
borhood was esteemed a blessing to the church. 
A lady has described to the writer the man- 
ner in which he would stand up and exhort 
in the church-meetings for prayer, when, 
with streaming eyes and the deepest abase- 
ment, humbly addressing them as his mas- 
ters and misses, he would nevertheless pour 
forth religious exhortations which were edify- 
ing to the most cultivated and refined. 

In the town of Brunswick, Maine, where 
the writer lived when writing " Uncle Tom's 
Cabin," may now be seen the grave of an aged 
colored woman, named Phebe, who was so 
eminent for her piety and loveliness of char- 
acter, that the writer has never heard her 
name mentioned except with that degree of 
awe and respect which one would imagine 
due to a saint. The small cottage where she 
resided is still visited and looked upon as a 
sort of shrine, as the spot where old Phebe 
lived and prayed. Her prayers and pious 
exhortations were supposed to have been the 
cause of the conversion of many young people 
in the place. Notwithstanding that the un- 
christian feeling of caste prevails as strongly 
in Maine as anywhere else in New England, 
and the negro, commonly speaking, is an 
object of aversion and contempt, yet, so great 
was the influence of her piety and loveliness 
of character, that she was uniformly treated 
with the utmost respect and attention by all 
classes of people. The most cultivated and 
intelligent ladies of the place esteemed it a 
privilege to visit her cottage ; and when she 
was old and helpless, her wants were most 
tenderly provided for. When the news of 
her death was spread abroad in the place, it 
excited a general and very tender sensation 
of regret. " We have lost Phebe' s prayers," 
was the remark frequently made afterwards 
by members of the church, as they met one 



another. At her funeral the ex-governor 
of the state and the professors of the college 
officiated as pall-bearers, and a sermon was 
preached in which the many excellences of 
her Christian character were held up as an 
example to the community. A small reli- 
gious tract, containing an account of her life, 
was published by the American Tract So- 
ciety, prepared by a lady of Brunswick. The 
writer recollects that on reading the tract, 
when she first went to Brunswick, a doubt 
arose in her mind whether it was not some- 
what exaggerated. Some time afterwards 
she overheard some young persons convers- 
ing together about the tract, and saying that 
they did not think it gave exactly the right 
idea of Phebe. " Why, is it too highly col- 
ored ? " was the inquiry of the author. " 0. 
no, no, indeed," was the earnest response : 
•'it doesn't begin to give an idea of how 
good she was." 

Such instances as these serve to illus- 
trate the words of the apostle, " God hath 
chosen the foolish things of the world to con- 
found the wise ; and God hath chosen the 
weak things of the world to confound the 
things which are mighty." 

John Bunyan says that although the val- 
ley of humiliation be unattractive in the eyes 
of the men, of this world, yet the very sweet- 
est flowers grow there. So it is with the 
condition of the lowly and poor in this world. 
God has often, indeed always, shown a par- 
ticular regard for it, in selecting from that 
class the recipients of his grace. It is to be 
remembered that Jesus Christ, when he came 
to found the Christian dispensation, did not 
choose his apostles from the chief priests and 
the scribes, learned in the law, and high in 
the church ; nor did he choose them from 
philosophers and poets, whose educated and 
comprehensive minds might be supposed best 
able to appreciate his great designs ; but he 
chose twelve plain, poor fishermen, who were 
ignorant, and felt that they were ignorant, 
and who, therefore, were willing to give them- 
selves up with all simplicity to his guidance. 
What God asks of the soul more than any- 
thing else is faith and simplicity, the affection 
and reliance of the little child. Even these 
twelve fancied too much that they were wise, 
and Jesus was obliged to set a little child in 
the midst of them, as a more perfect teacher. 

The negro race is confessedly more simple, 
docile, child-like and affectionate, than other 
races ; and hence the divine graces of love and 
faith, when in-breathed by the Holy Spirit, 
find in their natural temperament a more 
congenial atmosphere. 



26 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



A last instance parallel with that of Uncle 
Tom is to be found in the published memoirs 
of the venerable Josiah Henson, now, as we 
have said, a clergyman in Canada. He was 
"raised" in the State of Maryland. His first 
recollections were of seeing his father muti- 
lated and covered with blood, suffering the 
penalty of the law for the crime of raising 
his hand against a white man, — that white 
man being the overseer, who had attempted a 
brutal assault upon his mother. This punish- 
ment made his father surly and dangerous, 
and he was subsequently sold south, and thus 
parted forever from his wife and children. 
Henson grew up in a state of heathenism, 
without any religious instruction, till, in a 
camp-meeting, he first heard of Jesus Christ, 
•and was electrified by the great and thrill- 
ing news that He had tasted death for every 
man, the bond as well as the free. This 
story produced an immediate conversion, such 
as we read of in ! the Acts of the Apostles, 
where the Ethiopian eunuch, from one inter- 
view, hearing the story of the cross, at once 
believes and is baptized. Henson forthwith 
not only became a Christian, but began to 
declare the news to those about him ; and, 
being a man of great natural force of mind 
and strength of character, his earnest endeav- 
ors to enlighten his fellow-heathen were so 
successful that he was gradually led to assume 
the station of a negro preacher ; and though 
he could not read a word of the Bible or 
hymn-book, his labors in this line were much 
prospered. He became immediately a very 
valuable slave to his master, and was in- 
trusted by the latter with the oversight of 
his whole estate, which he managed with 
great judgment and prudence. His master 
appears to have been a very ordinary man 
in every respect, — to have been entirely in- 
capable of estimating him in any other light 
then as exceedingly valuable property, and 
to have had no other feeling excited by his 
extraordinary faithfulness than the desire to 
make the most of him. When his affairs 
became embarrassed, he formed the design of 
removing all his negroes into Kentucky, and 
intrusted the operation entirely to his over- 
seer. Ilensou was to take them alone, with- 
out any other attendant, from Maryland to 
Kentucky, a distance of some thousands of 
miles, giving only his promise as a Christian 
that ho would faithfully perform this under- 
taking. On the way thither they passed 
through a portion of Ohio, and there lien- 
son was informed that he could now secure 
his own freedom and that of all his fellows. 
and he was strongly urged to do it. He J 



was exceedingly tempted and tried, but his 
Christian principle was invulnerable. No 
inducements could lead him to feel that it 
was right for a Christian to violate a pledge 
solemnly given,' and his influence over the 
whole band was sd great that he took them 
all with him into Kentucky. Those casuists 
among us who lately seem to think and teach 
that it is right for us to violate the plain 
commands of God whenever some great 
national good can be secured by it, would 
do well to contemplate the inflexible prin- 
ciple of this poor slave, who, without being 
able to read a letter of the Bible, was yet 
enabled to perform this most sublime act 
of self-renunciation in obedience to its com- 
mands. Subsequently to this, his master, 
in a relenting moment, was induced by a 
friend to sell him his freedom for four hun- 
dred dollars ; but, when the excitement of the 
importunity had passed off, he regretted that 
he had suffered so valuable a piece of prop- 
erty to leave his hands for so slight a remu- 
neration. By an unworthy artifice, therefore, 
he got possession of his servant's free papers, 
and condemned him still to hopeless slavery. 
Subsequently, his affairs becoming still more 
involved, he sent his son down the river with 
a flat-boat loaded with cattle and produce for 
the New Orleans market, directing him to 
take Henson along, and sell him after they 
had sold the cattle and the boat. All the 
depths of the negro's soul were torn up and 
thrown into convulsion by this horrible piece 
of ingratitude, cruelty and injustice ; and, 
while outwardly calm, he was struggling 
with most bitter temptations from within, 
which, as he could not read the Bible, he 
could repel only by a recollection of its sacred 
truths, and by earnest prayer. As he neared 
the New Orleans market, he says that these 
convulsions of soul increased, especially when 
he met some of his old companions from 
Kentucky, whose despairing countenances 
and emaciated forms told of hard work and 
insufficient food, and confirmed all his worst 
fears of the lower country. In the trans- 
ports of his despair, the temptation was more 
urgently presented to him to murder his 
young master and the other hand on the flat- 
boat in their sleep, to seize upon the boat, 
and make his escape. He thus relates the 
scene where he was almost brought to the 
perpetration of this deed : 

One dark, rainy night, within a few days of 
New Orleans, my hour seemed to have come. I 
was alone on the deck ; Mr. Amos and the hands 
were all asleep below; and I crept down noise- 
lessly, got hold of an axe, entered the cabin, and 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 



27 



looking by the aid of the dim light there for my 
victims, my eye fell upon Muster Amos, who was 
nearest to me ; my hand slid along the axe- 
handle, I raised it to strike the fatal blow, — when 
suddenly the thought came tome, " What ! com- 
mit murder ! and you a Christian?" I had not 
called it murder before. It was self-defence, — 
it was preventing others from murdering me, — 
it was justifiable, it was even praiseworthy. But 
now, all at once, the truth burst_ upon me that it 
was a crime. I was going to kill a young man, 
who had done nothing to injure me, but obey com- 
mands which he could not resist ; I was about to 
lose the fruit of all my efforts at self-improvement, 
the character I had acquired, and the peace of 
mind which had never deserted me. All this 
came upon me instantly, and with a distinctness 
which made me almost think I heard it whispered 
in my ear ; and I believe I even turned my head 
to listen. I shrunk back, laid down the axe, 
crept up on deck again, and thanked God, as I 
have done every day since, that I had not com- 
mitted murder. 

My feelings were still agitated, but they were 
©hanged. I wag filled with shame and remorse for 
the design I had entertained, and with the fear that 
my companions would detect it in my face, or that 
a careless word would betray my guilty thoughts. 
I remained on deck all night, instead of rousing 
one of the men to relieve me ; and nothing brought 
composure to my mind, but the solemn resolution 
I then made to resign myself to the will of God, 
and take with thankfulness, if I could, but with 
submission, at all events, whatever he might 
decide should be my lot. I reflected that if my 
life were reduced to a brief term I should have 
less to suffer, and that it was better to die with a 
Christian's hope, and a quiet conscience, than to 
live with the incessant recollection of a crime 
that would destroy the value of life, and under 
the weight of a secret that would crush out the 
satisfaction that might be expected from freedom, 
and every other blessing. 

Subsequently to this, his young master was 
taken violently down with the river fever, 
and became as helpless as a child. He pas- 
sionately entreated Henson not to desert him, 
but to attend to the selling of the boat and 
produce, and put him on board the steamboat, 
and not to leave him, dead or alive, till he had 
carried him back to his father. 

The young master was borne in the arms 
of his faithful servant to the steamboat, and 
there nursed by him with unremitting atten- 
tion during the journey up the river; nor 
did he leave him till he had placed him in 
his father's arms. 

Our love for human nature would lead us 
to add, with sorrow, that all this disinterest- 
edness and kindness was rewarded only by 
empty praises, such as would be bestowed 
upon a very fine dog; and Henson indig- 
nantly resolved no longer to submit to the 
injusticg. With a degree of prudence, cour- 
age and address, which can scarcely find a 
parallel in any history, he managed, with 
his wife and two children, to escape into Can- 



ada. Here he learned to read, and, by his 
superior talent and capacity for management, 
laid the foundation for the fugitive settlement 
of Dawn, which is understood to be one of 
the most flourishing in Canada. 

It would be well for the most cultivated 
of us to ask, whether our ten talents in the 
way of religious knowledge have enabled us 
to bring forth as much fruit to the glory of 
God, to withstand temptation as patiently, 
to return good for evil as disinterestedly, as 
this poor, ignorant slave. A writer in Eng- 
land has sneeringly remarked that such a 
man as Uncle Tom might be imported as a 
missionary to teach the most cultivated in 
England or America the true nature of reli- 
gion. These instances show that what has 
been said with a sneer is in truth a sober 
verity ; and it should never be forgotten that 
out of this race whom man despiseth have 
often been chosen of God true messengers of 
his grace, and temples for the indwelling of 
his Spirit. 

" For thus saith the high and lofty 
One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name 
is Holy, I dwell in the high and holy 
place, with him also that is of a contrite 
and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of 
the humble, and to revive the heart of the 
contrite ones." 

The vision attributed to Uncle Tom intro- 
duces quite a curious chapter of psychology 
with regard to the negro race, and indicates 
a peculiarity which goes far to show how 
very different they are from the white race. 
They are possessed of a nervous organiza- 
tion peculiarly susceptible and impressible. 
Their sensations and impressions are very 
vivid, and their fancy and imagination lively. 
In this respect the race has an oriental char- 
acter, and betrays its tropical origin. Like 
the Hebrews of old and the oriental nations 
of the present, they give vent to their emotions 
with the utmost vivacity of expression, and 
their whole bodily system sympathizes with 
the movements of their minds. When in 
distress, they actually lift up their voices to 
weep, and -"cry with an exceeding bitter 
cry." When alarmed, they are often para- 
lyzed, and rendered entirely helpless. Their 
religious exercises are all colored by this 
sensitive and exceedingly vivacious tempera- 
ment. Like oriental nations, they incline 
much to outward expressions, violent gestic- 
ulations, and agitating movements of the 
body. Sometimes, in their religious meet- 
ings, they will spring from the floor many 
times in succession, with a violence and 
rapidity which is perfectly astonishing. 



28 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



They will laugh, weep, embrace each other 
convulsively, and sometimes become entirely 
paralyzed and cataleptic. A clergyman 
from the North once remonstrated with a 
Southern clergyman for permitting such 
extravagances among his flock. The reply 
of the Southern minister was, in effect, this : 
" Sir, I am satisfied that the races are so 
essentially different that they cannot be reg- 
ulated by the same rules. I, at first, felt 
as you do ; and, though I saw that genuine 
conversions did take place, with all this out- 
ward manifestation, I was still so much 
annoyed by it as to forbid it among my 
negroes, till I was satisfied that the repres- 
sion of it was a serious hindrance to real 
religious feeling ; and then I became certain 
that all men cannot be regulated in their 
religious exercises by one model. I am 
assured that conversions produced with these 
accessories are quite as apt to be genuine, 
and to be as influential over the heart and 
life, as those produced in any other way." 
The fact is, that the Anglp-Saxon race — 
cool, logical and practical — have yet to 
learn the doctrine of toleration for the pecu- 
liarities of other races ; and perhaps it was 
with a foresight of their peculiar character, 
and dominant position in the earth, that God 
gave the Bible to them in the fervent lan- 
guage and with the glowing imagery of the 
more susceptible and passionate oriental 
races. 

Mesmerists have found that the negroes 
are singularly susceptible to all that class 
of influences which produce catalepsy, mes- 
meric sleep, and partial clairvoyant phenom- 
ena. 

The African race, in their own climate, 
are believers in spells, in "fetish and obi," 
in " the evil eye," and other singular influ- 
ences, for which, probably, there is an origin 
in this peculiarity of constitution. The 
magicians in scriptural history were Afri- 
cans ; and the so-called magical arts are still 
practised in Egypt, and other parts of 
Africa, with a degree of skill and success 
which can only be accounted for by suppos- 
ing peculiarities of nervous constitution quite 
different from those of the whites. Consid- 
i ring tlio.se distinctive traits of the race, it 
is no matter of surprise to find in their reli- 
gious histories, when acted upon by the 
powerful stimulant of the Christian religion, 
very peculiar features. We are not sur- 
prised to find almost constantly, in the nar- 
rations of their religious histories, accounts 
of visions, of heavenly voices, of mysterious 
sympathies and transmissions of knowledge 



from heart to heart without the interven- 
tion of the senses, or what the Quakers call 
being "baptized into the spirit" of those 
who are distant. 

Cases of this kind are constantly recur- 
ring in their histories. The young man 
whose story was related to the Boston lady, 
and introduced above in the chapter on 
George Harris, stated this incident concern- 
ing the recovery of his liberty : That, after 
the departure of his wife and sister, he, for 
a long time, and very earnestly, sought some 
opportunity of escape, but that every avenue 
appeared to be closed to him. At length. 
in despair, he retreated to his room, and 
threw himself upon his bed, resolving to 
give up the undertaking, when, just as he 
was sinking to sleep, he was roused by a 
voice saying in his ear, " Why do you sleep 
now? Rise up, if you ever mean to be 
free!" He sprang up, went immediately 
out, and, in the course of two hours, discov- 
ered the means of escape which he used. 

A lady whose history is known to the writer 



resided for some time on a Southern planta- 
tion, and was in the habit of imparting reli- 
gious instruction to the slaves. One day, a 
woman from a distant plantation called n\ 
her residence, and inquired for her. The 
lady asked, in surprise, "How did you 
know about me]" The old woman's reply 
was, that she had long been distressed about 
her soul; but that, several nights before, 
some one had appeared to her in a dream, 
told her to go to this plantation and inquire 
for the strange lady there, and that she 
would teach her the way to heaven. 

Another specimen of the same kind was 
related to the writer by a slave-woman who 
had been through the whole painful experi- 
ence of a slave's life. She was originally a 
young girl of pleasing exterior and gentle 
nature, carefully reared as a seamstress and 
nurse to the children of a family in Virginia, 
and attached, with all the warmth of her 
susceptible nature, to these children. Al- 
though one of the tendcrest of mothers when 
the writer knew her, yet she assured the 
writer that she had never loved a child of 
her own as she loved the dear little young 
mistress who was her particular charge. 
Owing, probably, to some pecuniary diffi- 
culty in the family, this girl, whom we will 
call Louisa, was sold, to go on to a South- 
ern plantation. She has often described the 
scene when she was forced into a carriage, 
and saw her dear young mistress leaning 
from the window, stretching her arms 
towards her, screaming, and calling her 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



29 



name, -with all the vehemence of childish 
grief. She was carried in a coffle, and sold 
as cook on a Southern plantation. With 
the utmost earnestness of language she has 
described to the writer her utter loneliness, 
and the distress and despair of her heart, in 
this situation, parted forever from all she 
held dear on earth, without even the possi- 
bility of writing letters or sending messages, 
surrounded by those who felt no kind of 
interest in her, and forced to a toil for which 
her more delicate education had entirely 
unfitted her. Under these circumstances, 
she began to believe that it was for some 
dreadful sin she had thus been afflicted. 
The course of her mind after this may be 
best told in her own simple words : 

"After that, I began to feel awful wicked, 
— 0, so wicked, you 've no idea ! I felt so 
wicked that my sins seemed like a load on 
me, and I went so heavy all the day ! I 
felt so wicked that I did n't feel worthy to 
pray in the house, and I used to go way off 
in the lot and pray. At last, one day, when 
I was praying, the Lord he came and spoke 
to me." 

"The Lord spoke to you?" said the 
writer; " what do you mean, Louisa? " 

With a face of the utmost earnestness, 
she answered, "Why, ma'am, the Lord 
Jesus he came and spoke to me, you know ; 
and I never, till the last day of my life, 
shall forget what he said to me." 
"What was it?" said the writer. 
" He said, ' Fear not, my little one ; thy 
sins are forgiven thee;' " and she added to 
this some verses, which the writer recog- 
nized as those of a Methodist hymn. 

Being curious to examine more closely 
this phenomenon, the author said, 

"You mean that you dreamed this, 
Louisa." 

With an air of wounded feeling, and much 
earnestness, she answered, 

"0 no, Mrs. Stowe; that never was a 
dream; you'll never make me believe that." 
The thought at once arose in the writer's 
mind, If the Lord Jesus is indeed every- 
where present, and if he is as tender-hearted 
and compassionate as he was on earth, — 
and we know he is, — must he not some- 
times long to speak to the poor, desolate 
slave, when he knows that no voice but His 
can carry comfort and healing to his soul ? 

This instance of Louisa is so exactly par- 
allel to another case, which the author 
rea ~ed from an authentic source, that she 
is tempted to place the two side by side. 
Among the slaves who were brought into 



the New England States, at the time when 
slavery was prevalent, was one woman, 
who, immediately on being told the history 
of the love of Jesus Christ, exclaimed, "He 
is the one ; this is what I wanted." 

This language causing surprise, her his- 
tory was inquired into. It was briefly this : 
While living in her simp^ hut in Africa, 



upon her 
and chil- 



the kidnappers one day rushed 
family, and carried her husband 
dren off to the slave-ship, she escaping into 
the woods. On returning to her desolate 
home, she mourned with the bitterness of 
"Rachel weeping for her children." For 
many days her heart was oppressed with a 
heavy weight of sorrow; and, refusing all 
sustenance, she wandered up and down the 
desolate forest. 

At last, she says, a strong impulse came 
over her to kneel down and pour out her 
sorrows into the ear of some unknown Being 
whom she fancied to be above her, in the sky. 

She did so ; and, to her surprise, found 
an inexpressible sensation of relief. After 
this, it was her custom daily to go out to 
this same spot, and supplicate this unknown 
Friend. Subsequently, she was herself 
taken, and brought over to America; and, 
when the story of Jesus and his love was 
related to her, she immediately felt in her 
soul that this Jesus was the very friend who 
had spoken comfort to her yearning spirit 
in the distant forest of Africa. 

Compare now these experiences with the 
earnest and beautiful language of Paul : 
" He hath made of one blood all nations of 
men, for to dwell on all the face of the 
earth ; and hath determined the times be- 
fore appointed and the bounds of their 
habitation, that THEY SHOULD seek the 
Lord, if haply they might feel after 
Him and find Him, though he be not far 
from every one of lis." 

Is not this truly " feeling after God 
and finding Him"? And may we not 
hope that the yearning, troubled, helpless 
heart of man, pressed by the insufferable 
anguish of this short life, or wearied by its 
utter vanity, never extends its ignorant, 
pleading hand to God in vain ? Is not the 
veil which divides us from an almighty and 
most merciful Father much thinner than we. 
in the pride of our philosophy, are apt to 
imagine ? and is it not the most worthy con- 
ception of Him to suppose that the more 
utterly helpless and ignorant the human 
being is that seeks His aid, the more tender 
and the more condescending will be His 
communication with that soul ? 



30 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



If a mother has among her children one 
whom sickness has made blind, or deaf, or 
dumb, incapable of acquiring knowledge 
through the usual channels of communica- 
tion, does she not seek to reach its darkened 
mind by modes of communication tenderer 
and more intimate than those which she 
uses with the stronger and more favored 
ones 1 But can the love of any mother be 
compared with the infinite love of Jesus ? 
Has He not described himself as that good 
Shepherd who leaves the whole flock of 
secure and well-instructed ones, to follow 
over the mountains of sin and ignorance the 
one lost sheep ; and, when He hath found 
it, rejoicing more over that one than over 
the ninety and nine that went not astray ? 
Has He not told us that each of these little 
ones has a guardian angel that doth always 
behold the face of his Father which is in 
heaven 1 And is it not comforting to us to 
think that His love and care will be in pro- 
portion to the ignorance and the wants of 
His chosen ones? 

****** 

Since the above was prepared for the 
press the author has received the following 
extract from a letter written by a gentleman 
in Missouri to the editor of the Oberlin 
(Ohio) Evangelist : 

I really thought, while reading "Uncle Tom's 
Cabin," that the authoress, when describing the 
character of Tom, had in her mind's eye a slave 
whose acquaintance I made some years since, in 
the State of Mississippi, called "Uncle Jacob." 
I was staying a day or two with a planter, and in 
the evening, when out in the yard, I heard a well- 
known hymn and tune sung in one of the " quar- 
ters," and then the voice of prayer ; and 0, such 
a prayer ! what fervor, what unction, — nay, the 
man "prayed right up;" and when I read of 
Uncle Tom, how " nothing could exceed the 
touching simplicity, the childlike earnestness, of 
bis prayer, enriched with the language of Scrip- 
ture, which seemed so entirely to have wrought 
itaelf into his being as to have become a part of 
himself," the recollections of that evening prayer 
were strangely vivid. On entering the house and 
referring to what I had heard, his master replied, 
" Ah, sir, if I covet anything in this world, it is 
Uncle Jacob's religion. If there is a good man 
on earth, he certainly is one." He said Uncle 
Jacob was a regulator on the plantation ; that a 
word or a look from him, addressed to younger 
slaves, had more efficacy than a blow from the 
overseer. 

The next morning Uncle Jacob informed me he 
was from Kentucky, opposite Cincinnati ; that 
his opportunities for attending religious worship 
had been frequent; that at about the age of 
forty he was Bold south, was Bet to picking cotton ; 
couid not, when doing bis best, pick the task as- 

I him ; was whipped and whipped, lie could 

not possibly tell how often; was of the opinion 

that the overseer came to the conclusion that 



whipping could not bring one more pound out of 
him, for he set him to driving a team. At this and 
other work he could "make a hand ,-" had changed 
owners three or four times. He expressed him- 
self as well pleased with his present situation as 
he expected to be in the South, but was yearning 
to return to his former associations in Kentucky. 



CHAPTER VII. 



MISS OPHELIA. 



Miss Ophelia stands as the representa- 
tive of a numerous class of the very best 
of Northern people ; to whom, perhaps, if 
our Lord should again address his churches 
a letter, as he did those of old time, he 
would use the same words as then: "I 
know thy works, and thy labor, and thy 
patience, and how thou canst not bear them 
which are evil ; and thou hast tried them 
which are apostles and are not, and hast 
found them liars : and hast borne, and hast 
patience, and for my name's sake hast 
labored and hast not fainted. Neverthe- 
less, I have somewhat against thee, because 
thou hast left thy first love." 

There are in this class of people activity, 
zeal, unflinching conscientiousness, clear in- 
tellectual discriminations between truth and 
error, and great logical and doctrinal cor- 
rectness ; but there is a want of that spirit 
of love, without which, in the eye of Christ, 
the most perfect character is as deficient as 
a wax flower — wanting in life and perfume. 

Yet this blessed principle is not dead in 
their hearts, but only sleepeth; and so great 
is the real and genuine goodness, that, when 
the true magnet of divine love is applied, 
they always answer to its touch. 

So Avhen the gentle Eva, who is an imper- 
sonation in childish form of the love of 
Christ, solves at once, by a blessed instinct. 
the problem which Ophelia has long been 
unable to solve by dint of utmost hammer- 
ing and vehement effort, she at once, with 
a good and honest heart, perceives and ac- 
knowledges her mistake, and is willing to 
learn even of a little child. 

Miss Ophelia, again, represents one great 
sin, of which, unconsciously, American 
Christians have allowed themselves to bo 
guilty. Unconsciously it must be, for no- 
where is conscience so predominant as 
among this class, and nowhere is there a 
more honest strife to bring every thought 
into captivity to the obedience of Christ. 

One of the first and most declared objects 
of the gospel has been to break down all 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



91 



those irrational barriers and prejudices 
which separate the human brotherhood into 
diverse and contending clans. Paul says, 
" In Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor 
Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free." 
The Jews at that time were separated from 
the Gentiles by an insuperable wall of 
prejudice. They could not eat and drink 
together, nor pray together. But the apos- 
tles most earnestly labored to show them 
the sin of this prejudice. St. Paul says to 
the Ephesians, speaking of this former 
division, " He is our peace, who hath made 
both one, and hath broken down the middle 
wall of partition between us." 

It is very easy to see that although slav- 
ery has been abolished in the New England 
States, it has left behind it the most 
baneful feature of the system — that which 
makes American worse than Roman slavery 
— the prejudice of caste and color. In 
the New England States the negro has been 
treated as belonging to an inferior race of 
beings ; — forced to sit apart by himself in 
the place of worship ; his children excluded 
from the schools ; himself excluded from the 
railroad-car and the omnibus, and the pecu- 
liarities of his race made the subject of 
bitter contempt and ridicule. 

This course of conduct has been justified 
by saying that they are a degraded race. 
But how came they degraded ? Take any 
class of men, and shut them from the means 
of education, deprive them of hope and self- 
respect, close to them all avenues of honor- 
able ambition, and you w T ill make just such 
a race of them as the negroes have been 
among us. 

So singular and so melancholy is the 
dominion of prejudice over the human mind, 
that professors of Christianity in our New 
England States have often, with very serious 
self-denial to themselves, sent the gospel to 
heathen as dark-complexioned as the Afri- 
cans, when in their very neighborhood were 
persons of dark complexion, who, on that 
account, were forbidden to send their chil- 
dren to the schools, and discouraged from 
entering the churches. The effect of this 
has been directly to degrade and depress 
the race, and then this very degradation 
and depression has been pleaded as the 
reason for continuing this course. 

Not long since the writer called upon a 
benevolent lady, and during the course of 
the call the conversation turned upon the 
incidents of a fire which had occurred the 



The lady said it was supposed it had been 
set on fire. "What could be any one's 
motive for setting it on fire?" said the 
writer. 

"Well," replied the lady, "it was sup- 
posed that a colored family was about to 
move into it, and it was thought that the 
neighborhood would n't consent to that. So 
it was supposed that was the reason." 

This was said with an air of innocence 
and much unconcern. 

The writer incpiired, " Was it a family of 
bad character 1 " 

" No, not particularly, that I know of," 
said the lady ; "but then they are negroes, 
you know." 

Now, this lady is a very pious lady. She 
probably would deny herself to send the 
gospel to the heathen, and if she had ever 
thought of considering this family a heathen 
fimily, Avould have felt the deepest interest 
in their welfare ; because on the subject of 
duty to the heathen she had been frequently 
instructed from the pulpit, and had all her 
religious and conscientious sensibilities awake. 
Probably she had never listened from the 
pulpit to a sermon which should exhibit the 
great truth, that " in Christ Jesus there is 
neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian, Scythian, 
bond nor free." 

Supposing our Lord was now on earth, 
as he was once, what course is it probable 
that he would pursue with regard to this un- 
christian prejudice of color 7 

There was a class of men in those days 
as much despised by the Jews as the negroes 
are by us ; and it was a complaint made of 
Christ that he was a friend of publicans and 
sinners. And if Christ should enter, on some 
communion season, into a place of worship, 
and see the colored man sitting afar off by 
himself, would it not be just in his spirit to 
go there and sit with him, rather than to take 
the seats of his richer and more prosperous 
brethren 7 

It is, however, but just to our Northern 
Christians to say that this sin has been 
committed ignorantly and in unbelief, and 
that within a few years signs of a much bet- 
ter spirit have begun to manifest themselves. 
In some places, recently, the doors of 
school-houses have been thrown open to the 
children, and many a good Miss Ophelia 
has opened her eyes in astonishment to find 
that, while she has been devouring the 
Missionary Herald, and going without but- 
ter on her bread and sugar in her tea to send 



night before in the neighborhood. A de- the gospel to the Sandwich Islands, there is 
eerted house had been burned to the ground. I a very thriving colony of heathen in her 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



32 

own neighborhood at home ; and, true to 
her own good and honest heart, she has 
resolved, not to give up her prayers and 
efforts for the heathen abroad, but to add 
thereunto labors for the heathen at home. 

Our safety and hope in this matter is 
this : that there are multitudes in all our 
churches who do most truly and sincerely 
love Christ above all things, and who, just 
so soon as a little reflection shall have made 
them sensible of their duty in this respect, 
will most earnestly perform it. 

It is true that, if they do so, they may be 
called Abolitionists ; but the true Miss Ophe- 
lia is not afraid of a hard name in a good 
cause, and has rather learned to consider 
" the reproach of Christ a greater treasure 
than the riches of Egypt." 

That there is much already for Christians 
to do in enlightening the moral sense of the 
community on this subject, will appear if we 
consider that even so well-educate4 and gen- 
tlemanly a man as Frederick Douglass was 
recently obliged to pass the night on the deck 
of a steamer, when in delicate health, because 
this senseless prejudice deprived him of a 
place in the cabin ; and that that very labo- 
rious and useful minister, Dr. Pennington, 
of New York, has, during the last season, 
been often obliged seriously to endanger his 
health, by walking to his pastoral labors, 
over his very extended parish, under a burn- 
ing sun, because he could not be allowed the 
common privilege of the omnibus, which con- 
veys every class of white men, from the most 
refined to the lowest and most disgusting. 

Let us consider now the number of pro- 
fessors of the religion of Christ in New York, 
and consider also that, by the very fact of 
their profession, they consider Dr. Penning- 
ton the brother of their Lord, and a member 
with them of the body of Christ. 

Now, these Christians are influential, rich 
and powerful ; they can control public sen- 
timent on any subject that they think of 
any particular importance, and they profess, 
by their religion, that " if one member suf- 
fers, all the members suffer with it." 

It is a serious question, whether such a 
marked indignity offered to Christ and his 
ministry, in the person of a colored brother, 
without any remonstrance on their part, will 
not lead to a general feeling that all that the 
Bible says about the union of Christians is 
a mere hollow sound, and means nothing. 

Those who are anxious to do something 
directly to improve the condition of the slave, 
can do it in no way so directly as by elevat- 



ing the condition of the free colored people 
around them, and taking every pains to give 
them equal rights and privileges. 

This unchristian prejudice has doubtless 
stood in the way of the emancipation of hun- 
dreds of slaves. The slave-holder, feeling 
and acknowledging the evils of slavery, has 
come to the North, and seen evidences of 
this unkindly and unchristian state of feeling 
towards the slave, and has thus reflected 
within himself: 

" If I keep my slave at the South, he is, 
it is true, under the dominion of a very 
severe law ; but then he enjoys the advan- 
tage of my friendship and assistance, and 
derives, through his connection with me and 
my family, some kind of a position in the 
community. As my servant he is allowed a 
seat in the car and a place at the table. But 
if I emancipate and send him North, he will 
encounter substantially all the disadvantages 
of slavery, with no master to protect him." 

This mode of reasoning has proved an 
apology to many a man for keeping his slaves 
in a position which he confesses to be a 
bad one ; and it will be at once perceived 
that, should the position of the negro be con- 
spicuously reversed in our northern states, 
the effect upon the emancipation of the slave 
would be very great. They, then, who keep 
up this prejudice, may be said to be, in a cer- 
tain sense, slave-holders. 

It is not meant by this that all distinc- 
tions of society should be broken over, and 
that people should be obliged to choose their 
intimate associates from a class unfitted by 
education and habits to sympathize with them. 

The negro should not be lifted out of his 
sphere of life because he is a negro, but he 
should be treated with Christian courtesy in 
his sphere. In the railroad car, in the om- 
nibus and steamboat, all ranks and degrees 
of white persons move with unquestioned 
freedom side by side ; and Christianity re- 
quires that the negro have the same privilege. 

That the dirtiest and most uneducated 
foreigner or American, with breath redolent 
of Avhiskey and clothes foul and disordered, 
should have an unquestioned right to take a 
seat next to any person in a railroad car or 
steamboat, and that the respectable, decent 
and gentlemanly negro should be excluded 
simply because he is a negro, cannot be con- 
sidered otherwise than as an irrational and 
unchristian thing : and any Christian who 
allows such things done in his presence with- 
out remonstrance, and the use of his Christ- 
ian influence, will certainly be made deeply 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 



33 



sensible of his error when he comes at last 
to direct and personal interview with his 
Lord. 

There is no hope for this matter, if the 
love of Christ is not strong enough, and if 
it cannot be said, with regard to the two 
races, t: He is our peace who hath made both 
one, and hath broken down the middle Avail 
of partition between us." 

The time is coming rapidly "when the up- 
per classes in society must learn that their 
education, wealth and refinement, are not 
their own ; that they have no right to use 
them for their own selfish benefit ; but 
that they should hold them rather, as Fene- 
lon expresses it, as " a ministry," a stew- 
ardship, which they hold in trust for the 
benefit of their poorer brethren. 

In some of the very highest circles in 
England and America we begin to see illus- 
trious examples of the commencement of such 
a condition of things. 

One of the merchant princes of Boston, 
whose funeral has lately been celebrated in 
our city, afforded in his life a beautiful exam- 
ple of this truth. His w T ealth was the wealth 
of thousands. He was the steward of the 
widow and the orphan. His funds were a 
savings bank, wherein were laid up the re- 
sources of the poor ; and the mourners at 
his funeral wore the scholars of the schools 
which he had founded, the officers of literary 
institutions which his munificence had en- 
dowed, the widows and orphans whom he 
had counselled and supported, and the men, 
in all ranks and conditions of life, who had 
been made by his benevolence to feel that 
his wealth was their wealth. May God raise 
up many men in Boston to enter into the 
spirit and labors of Amos Lawrence ! 

This is the true socialism, which comes 
from the spirit of Christ, and, without break- 
ing down existing orders of society, by love 
makes the property and possessions of the 
higher class the property of the lower. 

Men are always seeking to begin their 
reforms with the outward and physical. 
Christ begins his reforms in the heart. Men 
would break up all ranks of society, and 
throw all property into a common stock ; but 
Christ would inspire the higher class with 
that Divine Spirit by which all the wealth 
and means and advantages of their position 
are used for the good of the lower. 

We see, also, in the highest aristocracy 
of England, instances of the same tendency. 

Among her oldest nobility there begin to 
arise lecturers to mechanics and patrons of 
ragged schools ; and it is said that even on 
3 



the throne of England is a woman who 
weekly instructs her class of Sunday-school 
scholars from the children in the vicinity of 
her country residence. 

In this way, and not by an outAvard and 
physical division of property, shall all things 
be had in common. And when the white 
race shall regard their superiority over the 
colored one only as a talent intrusted for 
the advantage of their weaker brother, then 
will the prejudice of caste melt away in the 
light of Christianity. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



MARIE ST. CLARE. 



Marie St. Clare is the type of a class 
of women not peculiar to any latitude, nor 
any condition of society. She may be found 
in England or in America. In the north- 
ern free states we have many Marie St. 
Clares, more or less fully developed. 

When found in a northern latitude, she is 
forever in trouble about her domestic rela- 
tions. Her servants never do anything right. 
Strange to tell, they are not perfect, and 
she thinks it a very great shame. She is 
fully convinced that she ought to have every 
moral and Christian virtue in her kitchen 
for a little less than the ordinary wages : 
and when her cook leaves her, because she 
finds she can get better wages and less work 
in a neighboring family, she thinks it shock- 
ingly selfish, unprincipled conduct. She is 
of opinion that servants ought to be perfectly 
disinterested ; that they ought to be willing 
to take up with the worst rooms in the 
house, with very moderate wages, and very 
indifferent food, when they can get much 
better elsewhere, purely for the sake of 
pleasing her. She likes to get hold of for- 
eign servants, who have not yet learned our 
ways, who are used to working for low 
wages, and who will be satisfied with almost 
anything ; but she is often heard to lament 
that they soon get spoiled, and want as 
many privileges as anybody else, — which is 
perfectly shocking. Marie often wishes 
that she could be a slave-holder, or could 
live somewhere where the lower class are 
kept down, and made to know their place. 
She is always hunting for cheap seamstresses, 
and will tell you, in an under-tone, that she 
has discovered a woman who will make linen 
shirts beautifully, stitch the collars and 
wristbands twice, all for thirty-seven cents. 



34 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



when many seamstresses get a dollar for it ; 
says she does it because she 's poor, and has 
no friends ; thinks you had better be care- 
ful in your conversation, and not let her 
know what prices are, or else she will get 
spoiled, and go to raising her price, — these 
sewing-women are so selfish. When Marie 
St. Clare has the misfortune to live in a free 
state, there is no end to her troubles. Her 
cook is always going off for better -wages 
and more comfortable quarters ; her cham- 
ber-maid, strangely enough, won't agree to 
be chambermaid and seamstress both for 
half wages, and so she deserts. Marie's 
kitchen-cabinet, therefore, is always in a 
state of revolution ; and she often declares, 
with affecting earnestness, that servants are 
the torment of her life. If her husband 
endeavor to remonstrate, or suggest another 
mode of treatment, he is a hard-hearted, 
unfeeling man; "he doesn't love her, and 
she always knew he didn't;" and so he is 1 
disposed of. 

But, when Marie comes under a system 
of laws which gives her absolute control over 
her dependants, — which enables her to sep- 
arate them, at her pleasure, from their dear- 
est family connections, or to inflict upon 
them the most disgraceful and violent pun- 
ishments, without even the restraint which 
seeing the execution might possibly produce, 
— then it is that the character arrives at 
full maturity. Human nature is no worse 
at the South than at the North ; but law at 
the South distinctly provides for and pro- 
tects the worst abuses to which that nature 
is liable. 

It is often supposed that domestic servi- 
tude in slave states is a kind of paradise; 
that house-servants are invariably pets ; 
that young mistresses are always fond of 
their "mammies," and young masters always 
handsome, good-natured and indulgent. 

Let any one in Old England or New 
England look about among their immediate 
acquaintances, and ask how many there are 
who would use absolute despotic power ami- 
ably ■ in a family, especially over a class 
degraded by servitude, ignorant, indolent, 
deceitful, provoking, as slaves almost neces- 
sarily are, and always must be. 

Let them look into their own hearts, and 
ask themselves if they would dare to be 
trusted with such a power. Do they not 
find in themselves temptations to bo unjust 
to those who arc inferiors and dependants .' 
Do they not find themselves tempted to be 
irritable and provoked, when the service of 



And, if they had the power to inflict cruel 
punishments, or to have them inflicted by 
sending the servant out to some place of 
correction, would they not be tempted to 
use that liberty 1 

With regard to those degrading punish- 
ments to which females are subjected, by 
being sent to professional whippers, or by 
having such functionaries sent for to the 
house, — as John Caphart testifies that he 
has often been, in Baltimore, — what can be 
said of their influence both on the superior 
and on the inferior class? It is very pain- 
ful indeed to contemplate this subject. The 
mind instinctively shrinks from it ; but still 
it is a very serious question whether it be 
not our duty to encounter this pain, that 
our sympathies may be quickened into more 
active exercise. For this reason, we give 
here the testimony of a gentleman whose 
accuracy will not be doubted, and who sub- 
jected himself to the pain of being an eye- 
witness to a scene of this kind in the cala- 
boose in New Orleans. As the reader will 
perceive from the account, it was a scene of 
such every-day occurrence as not to excite 
any particular remark, or any expression of 
sympathy from those of the same condition 
and color with the sufferer. 

When our missionaries first went to India, 
it was esteemed a duty among Christian 
nations to make themselves acquainted with 
the cruelties and atrocities of idolatrous wor- 
ship, as a means of quickening our zeal to 
send them the gospel. 

If it be said that we in the free states 
have no such interest in slavery, as we do 
not support it, and have no power to pre- 
vent it, it is replied that slavery does exist 
in the District of Columbia, which belongs 
to the whole United States; and that the 
free states are, before God, guilty of the 
crime of continuing it there, unless they will 
honestly do what in them lies for its exter- 
mination. 

The subjoined account was written by the 
benevolent Dr. Howe, whose labors in behalf 
of the blind have rendered his name dear to 
humanity, and was sent in a letter to the 
Hon. Charles Sumner. If any one think it 
too painful to be perused, let him ask 
himself if God will hold those guiltless who 
suffer a system to continue, the details of 
which they cannot even read. That this 
describes a common scene in the calaboose, 
we shall by and by produce othor witnesses 
to show. 



I have passed ten days in New Orleans, not 
their families is negligently performed? unproiitably, I trust, in examining tho publk 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



35 



institutions, — the schools, asylums, hospitals, 
prisons, &c. With the exception of the first, 
there is little hope of amelioration. I know not 
how much merit there may be in their system ; 
but I do know that, in the administration of the 
penal code, there are abominations which should 
bring down the fate of Sodom upon the city. If 
Howard or Mrs. Fry ever discovered so ill-admin- 
istered a den of thieves as the New Orleans 
prison, they never described it. In the negro's 
apartment I saw much which made me blush that 
I was a white man, and which, for a moment, 
stirred up an evil spirit in my animal nature. 
Entering a large paved court-yard, around which 
ran galleries filled with slaves of all ages, sexes 
and colors, I heard the snap of a whip, every 
stroke of which sounded like the sharp crack of a 
pistol. I turned my head, and beheld a sight 
which absolutely chilled me to the marrow of 
my bones, and gave me, for the first time in my 
life, the sensation of my hair stiffening at the 
roots. There lay a black girl flat upon her face, 
on a board, her two thumbs tied, and fastened to 
one end, her feet tied, and drawn tightly to the 
other end, while a strap passed over the small of 
her back, and, fastened around the board, com- 
pressed her closely to it. Below the strap she 
was entirely naked. By her side, and six feet off, 
stood a huge negro, with a long whip, which he 
applied with dreadful power and wonderful pre- 
cision. Every stroke brought away a strip of 
skin, which clung to the lash, or fell quivering on 
the pavement, while the blood followed after it. 
The poor creature writhed and shrieked, and, in a 
voice which showed alike her fear of death and 
her dreadful agony, screamed to her master, who 
stood at her head, "0, spare my life ! don't cut 
my soul out ! ' ' But still fell the horrid lash ; 
still strip after strip peeled off from the skin ; 
gash after gash was cut in her living flesh, until 
it became a livid and bloody mass of raw and quiv- 
ering muscle. It was with the greatest difficulty 
I refrained from springing upon the torturer, and 
arresting his lash ; but, alas ! what could I do, 
but turn aside to hide my tears for the sufferer, 
and my blushes for humanity? This was in a 
public and regularly-organized prison ; the pun- 
ishment was one recognized and authorized by the 
law. But think you the poor wretch had com- 
mitted a heinous offence, and had been convicted 
thereof, and sentenced to the lash? Not at all. 
She was brought by her master to be whipped by 
the common executioner, without trial, judge or 
jury, just at his beck or nod, for some real or sup- 
posed offence, or to gratify his own whim or mal- 
ice. And he may bring her day after day, with- 
out cause assigned, and inflict any number of 
lashes he pleases, short of twenty-five, provided 
only he pays the fee. Or, if he choose, he may 
have a private whipping-board on his own prem- 
ises, and brutalize himself there. A shocking 
part of this horrid punishment was its publicity, 
as I have said ; it was in a court-yard surrounded 
by galleries, which were filled with colored persons 
of all sexes, — runaway slaves, committed for 
6ome crime, or slaves up for sale. You would 
naturally suppose they crowded forward, and 
gazed, horror-stricken, at the brutal spectacle 
below ; but they did not ; many of them hardly 
noticed it, and many were entirely indifferent to 
it. They went on in their childish pursuits, and 
some were laughing outright in the distant parts 



of the galleries ; so low can man, created in God's 
image, be sunk in brutality. 



CHAPTER IX. 



ST. CLARE. 



It is with pleasure that we turn from the 
dark picture just presented, to the character 
of the generous and noble-hearted St. Clare, 
wherein the fairest picture of our Southern 
brother is presented. 

It has been the writer's object to separate 
carefully, as far as possible, the system from 
the men. It is her sincere belief that, while 
the irresponsible power of slavery is such 
that no human being ought ever to possess it, 
probably that power was never exercised 
more leniently than in many cases in the 
Southern States. She has been astonished 
to see how, under all the disadvantages 
which attend the early possession of ar- 
bitrary power, all the temptations which 
every reflecting mind must see will arise 
from the possession of this power in various 
forms, there are often developed such fine 
and interesting traits of character. To say 
that these cases are common, alas ! is not in 
our power. Men know human nature too 
well to believe us, if we should. But the 
more dreadful the evil to be assailed, the 
more careful should we be to be just in our 
apprehensions, and to balance the horror 
which certain abuses must necessarily ex- 
cite, by a consideration of those excellent 
and redeeming traits which are often found 
in individuals connected with the system. 

The twin brothers, Alfred and Augustine 
St. Clare, represent two classes of men 
which are to be found in all countries. 
They are the radically aristocratic and 
democratic men. The aristocrat by position 
is not always the aristocrat by nature, and 
vice versa ; but the aristocrat by nature, 
whether he be in a higher or lower position 
in society, is he who, though he may be 
just, generous and humane, to those whom 
he considers his equals, is entirely insensi- 
ble to the wants, and sufferings, and common 
humanity, of those whom he considers the 
lower orders. The sufferings of a countess 
would make him weep ; the sufferings of a 
seamstress are quite another matter. 

On the other hand, the democrat is often 
found in the highest position of life. To 
this man, superiority to his brother is a thing 
which he can never boldly and nakedly as- 



36 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



sert without a secret pain. In the lowest 
and humblest walk of life, he acknowledges 
the sacredness of a common humanity ; and 
however degraded by the opinions and in- 
stitutions of society any particular class 
may be, there is an instinctive feeling in 
his soul which teaches him that they are 
men of like passions with himself. Such 
men have a penetration which at once sees 
through all the false shows of outward cus- 
tom which make one man so dissimilar to 
another, to those great generic capabilities, 
sorrows, wants and weaknesses, wherein all 
men and women are alike ; and there is no 
such thing; as making them realize that one 
order of human beings have any prescrip- 
tive right over another order, or that the 
tears and sufferings of one are not just as 
good as those of another order. 

That such men are to be found at the 
South in the relation of slave-masters, that 
when so found they cannot and will not be 
deluded by any of the shams and sophistry 
wherewith slavery has been defended, that 
they look upon it as a relic of a barbarous 
age, and utterly scorn and contemn all its 
apologists, we can abundantly show. Many 
of the most illustrious Southern men of the 
Revolution were of this class, and many 
men of distinguished position of later day 
have entertained the same sentiments. 

Witnass the following letter of Patrick 
Henry, the sentiments of which are so much 
an echo of those of St. Clare that the reader 
might suppose one to be a copy of the 
other : 

LETTER OF TATRICK. HENRY. 

Hanover, January ISth, 1773. 
Dear Sir : I take this opportunity to acknowl- 
edge the receipt of Anthony Benezet's book 
against the slave-trade ; I thank you for it. Is 
it not a little surprising that the professors of 
Christianity, whose chief excellence consists in 
softening the human heart, in cherishing and im- 
proving its finer feelings, should encourage a 
practice wo totally repugnant to the first impres- 
sions of right and wrong? What adds to the 
wonder is, that this abominable practice has been 
introduced in the most enlightened ages. Times 
that seem to have pretensions to boast of high 
improvements in the arts and sciences, and refined 
morality, have brought into general use, and 
guarded by many laws, a species of violence and 
tyranny which OUT more rude and barbarous, but 
more honed ancestors detested. Is it not amazing 

that at a time when the rights of humanity arc 
defined and understood with precision, in a country 
above all others fond of liberty, — that in Buch an 

age and in such a country we find men professing 
a Deligion the most mild, humane, gentle and 
generous, adopting such a principle, as repugnant 
to humanity as it is inconsistent with the Bible, 
aud destructive to liberty ' Every thinking, honest 



man rejects it in speculation. How free in prac- 
tice from conscientious motives ! 

Would any one believe that I am master of 
slaves of my own purchase 1 ? I am drawn along 
by the general inconvenience of living here with- 
out them. I will not, I cannot, justify it. How- 
ever culpable my conduct, I will so far pay my 
devoir to virtue as to own the excellence and rec- 
titude of her precepts, and lament my want of 
conformity to them. 

I believe a time will come when an opportunity 
will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil. 
Everything we can do is to improve it, if it hap- 
pens in our day ; if not, let us transmit to our 
descendants, together with our slaves, a pity for 
their unhappy lot, and an abhorrence for slavery. 
If we cannot reduce this wished-for reformation 
to practice, let us treat the unhappy victims with 
lenity. It is the furthest advance we can mako 
towards justice. It is a debt we owe to the purity 
of our religion, to show that it is at variance with 
that law which warrants slavery. 

I know not when to stop. I could say many 
things on the subject, a serious view of which 
gives a gloomy prospect to future times ! 

What a sorrowful thing it is that such 
men live an inglorious life, drawn along by 
the general current of society, when they 
ought to be its regenerators ! Has God en- 
dowed them with such nobleness of soul, 
such clearness of perception, for nothing? 
Should they, to whom he has given superior 
powers of insight and feeling, live as all the 
world live ? 

Southern men of this class have often 
risen up to reprove the men of the North, 
when they are drawn in to apologize for the 
system of slavery. Thus, on one occasion, 
a representative from one of the northern 
states, a gentleman now occupying the very 
highest rank of distinction and official sta- 
tion, used in Congress the following lan- 
guage : 

The great relation of servitude, in some form or 
other, with greater or less departure from the theo- 
retic equality of men, is inseparable _ from our 
nature. Domestic slavery is not, in my judgment, 
to bo set down as an immoral or irreligious rela- 
tion. The slaves of this country are better 
clothed and fed than the peasantry of some of 
the most prosperous states of Europe. 

He was answered by Mr. Mitchell, of 

Tennessee, in these words : 

Sir, I do not go the length of the gentleman 
from Massachusetts, and hold that the existence 
of slavery in this country is almost a blessing. 
On the contrary, I am firmly settled in the opinion 
that it is a groat curse, — one of the greatest that 
could have ocen interwoven in our system. I, 
Mr. Chairman, am one of those whom these poor, 
wretches call masters. I do not task them ; I 
feed and clothe them well ; but yet, alas ! they arc 
slaves, and slavery is a curse in any shape. It is 
no doubt true that there are persons in Europe far 
more degraded than our slaves, — worse fed, worse 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 



37 



clothed, &c. ; but, sir, this is far from proving 
that negroes ought to be slaves. 

The celebrated John Randolph, of Roan- 
oke, said in Congress, on one occasion : 

Sir, I envy neither the heart nor the head of 
that man from the North who rises here to defend 
slavery on principle. 

The following lines from the will of this 
eccentric man show that this clear sense of 
justice, which is a gift of superior natures, 
at last produced some appropriate fruits in 
practice : 

I give to my slaves their freedom, to ivhich my 
conscicjice tells me they are justly entitled. It has 
a long time been a matter of the deepest regret to 
me, that the circumstances under which I in- 
herited them, and the obstacles thrown in the 
way by the laws of the land, have prevented my 
emancipating them in my life-time, which it is 
my full intention to do in case I can accomplish 
it. 

The influence on such minds as these of 
that kind of theological teaching which pre- 
vails in the majority of 1 pulpits at the 
South, and which justifies slavery directly 
from the Bible, cannot be sufficiently re- 
gretted. Such men are shocked to find 
their spiritual teachers less conscientious 
than themselves ; and if the Biblical argu- 
ment succeeds in bewildering them, it pro- 
duces scepticism with regard to the Bible 
itself. Professor Stowe states that, during 
his residence in Ohio, he visited at the house 
of a gentleman who had once been a Vir- 
ginian planter, and during the first years 
of his life was an avowed sceptic. He 
stated that his scepticism was entirely 
referable to this one cause, — that his minis- 
ter had constructed a scriptural argument 
in defence of slavery which he was unable 
to answer, and that his moral sense was so 
shocked by the idea that the Bible defended 
such an atrocious system, that he became an 
entire unbeliever, and so continued until he 
came under the ministration of a clergyman 
in Ohio, who succeeded in presenting to him 
the true scriptural view of the subject. He 
immediately threw aside his scepticism, and 
became a member of a Christian church. 

So we hear the Baltimore Sun, a paper 
in a slave state, and no way suspected of 
leaning towards abolitionism, thus scorn- 
fully disposing of the scriptural argument : 

Messrs. Burgess, Taylor & Co., Sun Iron Build- 
ing, send us a copy of a work of imposing ex- 
terior, a handsome work of nearly six hundred 
pages, from the pen of Rev. Josiah Priest, 
A.M., and published by Rev. W. S. Brown, M.D., 



at Glasgow, Kentucky, the copy before us convey- 
ing the assurance that it is the "fifth edition — 
stereotyped." And we have no doubt it is ; and 
the fiftieth edition may be published : but it will 
amount to nothing, for there is nothing in it. 
The book comprises the usually quoted facts asso- 
ciated with the history of slavery as recorded in 
the Scriptures, accompanied by the opinions and 
arguments of another man in relation thereto. 
And this sort of thing may go on to the end of 
time. It can accomplish nothing towards the 
perpetuation of slavery. The book is called 
" Bible Defence of Slavery ; and Origin, Fortunes, 
and History, of the Negro Race." Bible defence 
of slavery ! There is no such thing as a Bible 
defence of slavery at the present day. Slavery in 
the United States is a social institution, originat- 
ing in the convenience and cupidity of our ances- 
tors, existing by state laws and recognized to a 
certain extent — for the recovery of slave prop- 
erty — by the constitution. And nobody would 
pretend that, if it were inexpedient and unprofit- 
able for any man or any state to continue to hold 
slaves, they would be bound to do so, on the 
ground of a "Bible defence" of it. Slavery is 
recorded in the Bible, and approved, with many 
degrading characteristics. War is recorded in 
the Bible, and approved, under what seems to us 
the extreme of cruelty. But are slavery and war 
to endure forever, because we find them in the 
Bible ? Or, are they to cease at once and forever, 
because the Bible inculcates peace and brother- 
hood 1 

The book before us exhibits great research, but 
is obnoxious to severe criticism, on account of its 
gratuitous assumptions. The writer is constantly 
assuming this, that, and the other. In a work of 
this sort, a " doubtless" this, and " no doubt" 
the other, and " such is our belief," with respect 
to important premises, will not be acceptable to 
the intelligent reader. Many of the positions as- 
sumed are ludicrous ; and the fancy of the writer 
runs to exuberance in putting words and speeches 
into the mouths of the ancients, predicated upon 
the brief record of Scripture history. The argu- 
ment from the curse of Ham is not worth the paper 
it is written upon. It is just equivalent to that 
of Blackwood's Magazine, we remember examin- 
ing some years since, in reference to the admission 
of Rothschild to Parliament. The writer main- 
tained the religious obligation of the Christian 
public to perpetuate the political disabilities of 
the Jews, because it would be resisting the Divine 
will to remove them, in view of the "curse" 
which the aforesaid Christian Pharisee under- 
stood to be levelled against the sons of Abraham. 
Admitting that God has cursed both the Jewish 
race and the descendants of Ham, He is able to 
fulfil His purpose, though the " rest of mankind" 
should in all things act up to the benevolent pre- 
cepts of the "Divine law." Man may very 
safely cultivate the highest principles of the 
Christian dispensation, and leave God to work out 
the fulfilment of His curse. 

According to the same book and the same logic, 
all mankind being under a " curse," none of us 
ought to work out any alleviation for ourselves, 
and we are sinning heinously in harnessing steam to 
the performance of manual labor, cutting wheat by 
McCormick's diablerie, and laying hold 01 the light- 
ning to carry our messages for us, instead of footing 
it ourselves as our father Adam did. With a little 
more common sense, and much less of the uncom- 



38 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



mon sort, we should better understand Scripture, 
the institutions under which we live, the several 
rights of our fellow-citizens in all sections of the 
country, and the good, sound, practical, social 
relations, which ought to contribute infinitely more 
than they do to the happiness of mankind. 

If the reader wishes to know what kind 
of preaching it is that St. Clare alludes to, 
when he says he can learn what is quite as 
much to the purpose from the Picayune, 
and that such scriptural expositions of 
their peculiar relations don"t edify him 
much, he is referred to the following extract 
from a sermon preached in New Orleans, by 
the Rev. Theophilus Clapp. Let our reader 
now imagine that he sees St. Clare seated in 
the front slip, waggishly taking notes of the 
following specimen of ethics and humanity. 

Let all Christian teachers show our servants 
the importance of being submissive, obedient, in- 
dustrious, honest and faithful to the interests of 
their masters. Let their minds be filled with 
sweet anticipations of rest eternal beyond the 
grave. Let them be trained to direct their views 
to that fascinating and glorious futurity, where 
the sins, sorrows, and troubles of earth, will be 
contemplated under the aspect of means indis- 
pensable to our everlasting progress in knowledge, 
virtue and happiness. I would say to every slave 
in the United States, " You should realize that a 
wise, kind, and merciful Providence has appointed 
for you your condition iin life ; and, all things con- 
sidered, you could not be more eligibly situated. 
The burden of your care, toils and responsibilities, 
is much lighter than that which God has imposed 
on your master. The most enlightened philan- 
thropists, with unlimited resources, could not 
place you in a situation more favorable to your 
present and everlasting welfare than that which 
you now occupy. You have your troubles. So 
have all. Remember how evanescent are the 
pleasures and joys of human life." 

But, as Mr. Clapp will not, perhaps, be 
accepted as a representation of orthodoxy, 
let him be supposed to listen to the follow- 
ing declarations of the Rev. James Smylie, 
a clergyman of great influence in the Pres- 
byterian church, in a tract upon slavery, 
which he states in the introduction to have 
been written with particular reference to 
removing the conscientious scruples of re- 
ligious people in Mississippi and Louisiana, 
with regard to its propriety. 

Tf I believed, or was of opinion, that it was 
the Legitimate tendency of tin: gospel to abolish 
slavery, how would I approach a man, possessing 
as many Blaves as Abraham hail, and tell him | 
wished to obtain his permission t" preach to his 
Blaves? 

Suppose the man to be ignorant of the gospel, 
and that he would inquire of me what was my 
object. I would t.'ll him candidly (and every 
minister ought to be candid) that I wished to 
preach tin' gospel, because its legitimate tendency 



is to make his slaves honest, trusty and faithful ; 
not serving " with eye service, as men pleasers," 
"not purloining, but showing all good fidelity." 
" And is this," he would ask, " really the tendencv 
of the gospel?" 1 would answer, Yes. Thenl 
might expect that a man who had a thousand 
slaves, if he believed me, would not only permit 
me to preach to his slaves, but would do more. 
He would be willing to build me a house, furnish 
me a garden, and ample provision for a support. 
Because, he would conclude, verily, that this 
preacher would be worth more to him than a dozen 
overseers. But, suppose, then, he would tell me 
that he had understood that the tendency of the 
gospel was to abolish slavery, and inquire of me if 
that was the fact. Ah ! this is the rub. He has 
now cornered me. What shall I say ? Shall I, 
like a dishonest man, twist and dodge, and shift 
and turn, to evade an answer? No. I must, 
Kentuckian like, come out, broad, flat-footed, and 
tell him that abolition is the tendency of the gos- 
pel. What am I now to calculate upon ? I have 
told the man that it is the tendency of the gospel 
to make him so poor as to oblige him to take hold 
of the maul and wedge himself; he must catch, 
curry, and saddle his own horse ; he must black 
his own brogans (for he will not bo able to buy 
boots). His wife must go, herself, to the wash- 
tub, take hold of the scrubbing-broom, wash 
the pots, and cook all that she and her rail mauler 
will eat. 

Query. — Is it to be expected that a master ig- 
norant heretofore of the tendency of the gospel 
would fall so desperately in love with it, from a 
knowdedge of its tendency, that he would en- 
courage the preaching of it among his slaves ? 
Verily, NO. 

But suppose, when he put the last question to 
me, as to its tendency, I could and would, without 
a twist or quibble, tell him, plainly and candidly. 
that it was a slander on the gospel to say that 
emancipation or abolition was its legitimate ten- 
dency. I would tell him that the commandments 
of some men, and not the commandments of God, 
made slavery a sin. 7— Smylie on Slavery, p. 71. 

One can imagine the expression of 
countenance and tone of voice with which 
St. Clare would receive such expositions of 
the gospel. It is to be remarked that this 
tract does not contain the opinions of one 
man only, but that it has in its appendix a 
letter from two ecclesiastical bodies of the 
Presbyterian church, substantially endorsing 
its sentiments. 

Can any one wonder that a man like St. 
Clare should put such questions as these . ; 

"Is what you hear at church religion? Is 
that which can bend and turn, and descend 
and ascend, to fit every crooked phase of self- 
ish, worldly society, religion ? Is that reli- 
gion, which is less scrupulous, less generous, 
less just, less considerate for man. than even 
my own ungodly, worldly, blinded nature? 
No ! When I look for a religion, I must 
look for something above me. and not some- 
thing beneath." 

The character of St. Clare was drawn by 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



39 



the writer with enthusiasm and with hope. 
Will this hope never be realized 1 Will those 
men at the South, to whom God has. given 
"the power to perceive and the heart to 
feel the unutterable wrong and injustice of 
slavery, always remain silent and inactive ? 
What nobler ambition to a Southern man 
than to deliver his country from this dis- 
grace 1 From the South must the deliverer 
arise. How long shall he delay? There 
is a crown brighter than any earthly am- 
bition has ever worn, — there is a laurel 
which will not fade : it is prepared and wait- 
ino 1 for that hero who shall rise up for liberty 
at the South, and free that noble and beau- 
tiful country from the burden and disgrace 
of slavery. 



CHAPTER X. 



LEGREE. 



As St. Clare and the Shelbys are the 
representatives of one class of masters, so 
Legree is the representative of another ; and, 
as all good masters are not as enlightened, 
as generous, and as considerate, as St. Clare 
and Mr. Shelby, or as careful and success- 
ful in religious training as Mrs. Shelby, 
so all bad masters do not unite the personal 
ugliness, the coarseness and profaneness, 
of Legree. 

Legree is introduced not for the sake of 
vilifying masters as a class, but. for the sake of 
brin^ino; to the minds of honorable Southern 
men, who are masters, a very important feat- 
ure in the system of slavery, upon which, 
perhaps, they have never reflected. It is 
this : that no Southern law requires any 
test of character from the man to -whom 
the absolute power of master is granted. 

In the second part of this book it will be 
shown that the legal power of the master 
amounts to an absolute despotism over body 
and soul; and that there is no protection for 
the slave's life or limb, his family relations, 
his conscience, nay, more, his eternal inter- 
ests, but the character of the master. 

Rev. Charles C. Jones, of Georgia, in 
addressing masters, tells them that they have 
the power to open the kingdom of heaven 
or to shut it, to their slaves (Religious In- 
struction of the Negroes, p. 158), and a 
South Carolinian, in a recent article in Pra- 
se?'' s Magazine, apparently in a very seri- 
ous spirit, thus acknowledges the fact of this 
awful power: '-'Yes, we would have the 



whole South to feel that the soul of the 
slave is in some sense in the master's keep- 
ing, and to be charged against him here- 
after." 

Now, it is respectfully submitted to men 
of this high class, who are the law-makers, 
whether this awful power to bind and to 
loose, to open and to shut the kingdom of 
heaven, ought to be intrusted to every man 
in the community, without any other quali- 
fication than that of property to buy. Let 
this gentleman of South Carolina cast his 
eyes around the world. Let him travel for 
one week through any district of country 
either in the South or the North, and ask 
himself how many of the men whom he 
meets are fit to be trusted with this power, — 
how many are fit to be trusted with their own 
souls, much less with those of others 1 

Now, in all the theory of government as 
it is managed in our country, just in pro- 
portion to the extent of power is the strict- 
ness with which qualification for the proper 
exercise of it is demanded. The physician 
may not meddle with the body, to prescribe 
for its ailments, without a certificate that he 
is properly qualified. The judge may not 
decide on the laws which relate to property, 
without a long course of training, and most 
abundant preparation. It is only this office 
of master, which contains the power to bind 
and to loose, and to open and shut the king- 
dom of heaven, and involves responsibility 
for the soul as well as the body, that is 
thrown out to every hand, and committed 
without inquiry to any man of any character. 
A man may have made all his property by 
piracy upon the high seas, as we have rep- 
resented in the case of Legree, and there is 
no law whatever to prevent his investing 
that property in acquiring this absolute con- 
trol over the souls and bodies of his fellow- 
beings. To the half-maniac drunkard, to the 
man notorious for hardness and cruelty, to 
the man sunk entirely below public opinion, 
to the bitter infidel and blasphemer, the law 
confides this power, just as freely as to the 
most honorable and religious man on earth. 
And yet, men who make and uphold these 
laws think they are guiltless before God, 
because individually they do not perpetrate 
the wrongs which they allow others to per- 
petrate ! 

To the pirate Legree the law gives a power 
which no man of woman born, save One, 
ever was good enough to exercise. 

Are there such men as Legree ? Let 
any one go into the low districts and dens 
of New York, let them go into some of the 



40 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



lanes and alleys of London, and will they 
not there see many Legrees % Nay, take 
the purest district of New England, and let 
people cast about in their memory and see 
if there have not been men there, hard, 
coarse, unfeeling, brutal, who, if they had 
possessed the absolute power of Legree, 
would have used it in the same way ; and 
that there should be Legrees in the South- 
ern States, is only saying that human nature 
is the same there that it is everywhere. The 
only difference is this, — that in free states 
Legree is chained and restrained by law ; 
in the slave states, the law makes him an 
absolute, irresponsible despot. 

It is a shocking task to confirm by fact 
this part of the writer's story. One may 
well approach it in fear and trembling. It 
is so mournful to think that man, made in 
the image of God, and by his human birth 
a brother of Jesus Christ, can sink so low, 
can do such things as the very soul shud- 
ders to contemplate, — and to think that the 
very man who thus sinks is our brother, — is 
capable, like us, of the renewal by the Spirit 
of grace, by which he might be created in 
the image of Christ and be made equal unto 
the angels. They who uphold the laws 
which grant this awful power have another 
heavy responsibility, of which they little 
dream. How many souls of masters have 
been ruined through it ! How has this ab- 
solute authority provoked and developed 
wickedness which otherwise might have been 
suppressed ! How many have stumbled into 
everlasting perdition over this stumbling- 
stone of IRRESPONSIBLE POWER ! 

What facts do the judicial trials of slave- 
holding states occasionally develop ! What 
horrible records defile the pages of the law- 
book, describing unheard-of scenes of torture 
and agony, perpetrated in this nineteenth 
century of the Christian era, by the irre- 
sponsible despot whoowns the body and soul ! 
Let any one read, if they can. the ninety- 
third pageof Weld's Slavery as It Is, where 
the Rev. Mr. Dido-y giws an account of a 
trial in Kentucky for a deed of butchery 
and blood too repulsive to humanity to be 
here described. The culpril was convicted, 
and sentenced to death. Mr. .Dickeys 
account of the finale |g thus : 

The Court sat — [sham was judged to be guilty 
of a capital crime in the affair of < feorge. Be was 
bo be hanged at Salem. The day was Bet. My 
good old father \ isited him in the prison — two or 
times talked and prayed with him ; I visited 
him once myself. We fondly hoped thai he was 
a sincere penitent. Before the day of execution 
cams, by a »tne means, I never knew what, [sham 



was missing. About two years after, we learned 
that he had gone down to Natchez, and had mar- 
ried a lady of some refinement and piety. I saw 
her letters to his sisters, who were worthy mem- 
bers of the church of which I was pastor. The 
last letter told of his death. He was in Jackson's 
army, and fell in the famous battle of New Or- 
leans. I am, sir, your friend, 

Wm. Dickey. 

But the reader will have too much reason 
to know of the possibility of the existence 
of such men as Legree, when he comes to 
read the records of the trials and judicial 
decisions in Part II. 

Let not the Southern country be taunted 
as the only country in the world which pro- 
duces such men ; — let us in sorrow and in 
humility concede that such men are found 
everywhere ; but let not the Southern coun- 
try deny the awful charge that she invests 
such men with absolute, irresponsible power 
over both the body and the soul. 

With regard to that atrocious system of 
working up the human being in a given 
time, on which Legree is represented as con- 
ducting his plantation, there is unfortunately 
too much reason to know that it has been 
practised and is still practised. 

In Mr. Weld's book, < : Slavery as It Is, :; 
under the head of Labor, p. 39, are given 
several extracts from various documents, to 
show that this system has been pursued on 
some plantations to such an extent as to short- 
en life, and to prevent the increase of the 
slave population, so that, unless annually 
renewed, it would of itself die out. Of these 
documents we emote the following : 

The Agricultural Society of Baton Rouge, La., 
in its report, published in 1829, furnishes a 
labored estimate of the amount of expenditure 
necessarily incurred in conducting " a well-regu- 
lated sugar estate." In this estimate, the annual 
net loss of .slaves, over and above the supply by 
propagation, is set down at two and a half tee 
cent. ! The late Hon. Josiah S. Johnson, a mem- 
ber of Congress from Louisiana, addressed a letter 
to the Secretary of the United States 9 Treasury, in 
L830, containing a similar estimate, apparently 
made with great can', and going into minute 
details. Many items in this estimate differ from 
the preceding; but the estimate of the animal 
decrease of the slaves on a plantation was the 

same, — two and a HALF PER CENT.! 

In September, L834, the writer of this had an 
interview with James G. Birney, Esq., who then 
resided in Kentucky, having removed, with his 

family, from Alabama, the year before. A few 

hours before thai interview, and on the morning 
of the same day, Mr. B. bad spent a couple of 
hours with Hon. Henry Clay, at his residence, 
near Lexington. Mr. Birney remarked that Mr. 
Clay had just told him he bad lately been led to 
mistrust certain estimates as to the increase of 
the slave population in the far S mth-west, — csti- 
mates which lie had presented, I think, in a 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



41 



speech before the Colonization Society. He now 
believed that the births among the slaves in that 
quarter were not equal to the deaths ; and that, of 
course, the slave population, independent of immi- 
gration from the slave-selling states, was not sus- 
taining itself. 

Among other facts stated by Mr. Clay was the 
following, which we copy verbatim from the origi- 
nal memorandum made at the time by Mr. Bir- 
ney, with which he has kindly furnished us. 

"Sept. 16, 1834. — Hon. H. Clay, in a conver- 
sation at his own house on the subject of slavery, 
informed me that Hon. Outerbridge Horsey — for- 
merly a senator in Congress from the State of 
Delaware, and the owner of a sugar plantation in 
Louisiana — declared to him that his overseer 
worked his hands so closely that one of the women 
brought forth a child whilst engaged in the labors 
of the field. 

"Also that, a few years since, he was at a 
brick-yard in the environs of New Orleans, in 
which one hundred hands were employed ; among 
tli em were from twenty to thirty young women, in 
the prime of life. He was told by the proprietor 
that there had not been a child born among them 
for the last two or three years, although they all had 
husbands.'" 

The late Mr. Samuel Blackwell, a highly- 
respected citizen of Jersey City, opposite the city 
of New York, and a member of the Presbyterian 
church, visited many of the sugar plantations in 
Louisiana a few years since ; and having, for 
many years, been the owner of an extensive sugar 
refinery in England, and subsequently in this 
country, he had not only every facility afforded 
him by the planters for personal inspection of all 
parts of the process of sugar-making, but received 
from them the most unreserved communications 
as to their management of their slaves. Mr. B., 
after his return, frequently made the following 
statement to gentlemen of his acquaintance : — 
"That the planters generally declared to him 
that they were obliged so to overwork their slaves, 
during the sugar-making season (from eight to 
ten weeks), as to use them up in seven or eight 
years. For, said they, after the process is com- 
menced, it must be pushed, without cessation, 
night and day ; and we cannot afford to keep a 
sufficient number of slaves to do the extra work at 
the time of sugar-making, as we could not profit- 
ably employ them the rest of the year." 

Dr. Demming, a gentleman of high respectabil- 
ity, residing in Ashland, Richland County, Ohio, 
stated to Professor Wright, of New York city, 

" That, during a recent tour at the South, while 
ascending the Ohio river, on the steamboat Fame, 
he had an opportunity of conversing with a Mr. 
Dickinson, a resident of Pittsburg, in company 
with a number of cotton-planters and slave-deal- 
ers from Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi. 
Mr. Dickinson stated as a fact, that the sugar- 
planters upon the sugar-coast in Louisiana had 
ascertained that, as it was usually necessary to 
employ about twice the amount of labor during the 
boiling season that was required during the sea- 
son of raising, they could, by excessive driving, 
day and night, during the boiling season, accom- 
plish the whole labor with one set of hands. By 
pursuing this plan, they could afford to sacrifice a 
set of hands once in seven years! He further stated 
that this horrible system was now practised to a 
considerable extent ! The correctness of this 



statement was substantially admitted by the 
slave-holders then on board." 

The following testimony of Rev. Dr. Changing, 
of Boston, who resided some time in Virginia, 
shows that the over-working of slaves, to such an 
extent as to abridge life, and cause a decrease of 
population, is not confined to the far South and 
South-west. 

" I heard of an estate managed by an individ- 
ual who was considered as singularly successful, 
and who was able to govern the slaves without 
the use of the whip. I was anxious to see him ; 
and trusted that some discovery had been made 
favorable to humanity. I asked him how he was 
able to dispense with corporal punishment. He 
replied to me, with a very determined look, ' The 
slaves know that the work ?nusl be done, and that 
it is better to do it without punishment than with 
it.' In other words, the certainty and dread of 
chastisement were so impressed on them that they 
never incurred it. 

" I then found that the slaves on this well- 
managed estate decreased in number. I asked the 
cause. He replied, with perfect frankness and 
ease, ' The gang is not large enough for the 
estate.' In other words, they were not equal to 
the work of the plantation, and yet were made to 
do it, though with the certainty of abridging life. 

" On this plantation the huts were uncommonly 
convenient. There was an unusual air of neat- 
ness. A superficial observer would have called 
the slaves happy. Yet they were living under a 
severe, subduing discipline, and were over-worked 
to a degree that shortened life.''' 1 — Charming on 
Slavery, page 162, first edition. 

A friend of the writer — the Rev. Mr. 
Barrows, now officiating as teacher of 
Hebrew in Andover Theological Seminary 
■ — stated the following, in conversation with 
her : — That, while at New Orleans, some 
time since, he was invited by a planter to 
visit his estate, as he considered it to be a 
model one. He found good dwellings for 
the slaves, abundant provision distributed to 
them, all cruel punishments superseded by 
rational and reasonable ones, and half a day 
every week allowed to the negroes to culti- 
vate their own grounds. Provision was also 
made for their moral and religious instruc- 
tion. Mr. Barrows then asked the planter, 

'• Do you consider your estate a fair speci- 
men'?" The gentleman replied, "There 
are two systems pursued among us. One 
is, to make all we can out of a negro in a 
few years, and then supply his place with 
another ; and the other is, to treat him as I 
do. My neighbor on the next plantation 
pursues the opposite system. His boys are 
hard worked and scantily fed ; and I have 
had them come to me, and get down on their 
knees to beg me to buy them." 

Mr. Barrows says he subsecpuently passed 
by this plantation, and that the woe-struck, 
dejected aspect of its laborers fully confirmed 



42 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



the account. He also says that the gentle- 
man who managed so benevolently told him, 
"I do not make much money out of my 
slaves." 

It will be easy to show that such is the 
nature of slavery, and the temptations of 
masters, that such well-regulated plantations 
are and must be infinitely in the minority, 
and exceptional cases. 

The Rev. Charles C. Jones, a man of the 
finest feelings of humanity, and for many 
years an assiduous laborer for the benefit of 
the slave, himself the owner of a plantation, 
and qualified, therefore, to judge, both by 
experience and observation, says, after speak- 
ing of the great improvidence of the negroes, 
engendered by slavery : 

And, indeed, once for all, I 'will here say that 
the wastes of the system are so great, as well as 
the fluctuation in prices of the staple articles for 
market, that it is difficult, nay, impossible, to in- 
dulge in large expenditures on plantations, and 
make them savingly profitable. — Religious In- 
struction, p. 116. 

If even the religious and benevolent mas- 
ter feels the difficulty of uniting any great 
consideration for the comfort of the slave 
with prudence and economy, how readily 
must the moral question be solved by minds 
of the coarse style of thought which we have 
supposed in Legree ! 

" I used to, when I fust begun, have considera- 
ble trouble f'ussin' with 'em, and trying to make 
'em hold out, — doctorin' on 'em up when they 's 
sick, and givin' on 'em clothes, and blankets, and 
what not, trying to keep 'em all sort o' decent 
and comfortable. Law, 't want no sort o' use ; I 
lost money on 'em, and 'twas heaps o' trouble. 
Now, you see, I just put 'em straight through, 
sick or well. When one nigger's dead, I buy 
another ; and I tind it comes cheaper and easier 
every way." 

Added to this, the peculiar mode of labor 
on the sugar plantation is such that the mas- 
ter, at a certain season of the year, must 
over-work his slaves, unless he is willing to 
incur great pecuniary loss. In that very 
gracefully written apology for slavery, Pro- 
fessor Ingraham's ''Travels in the South- 
west," the following description of sugar- 
making is given. \\ r e quote from him in 
preference to any one else, because he speaks 
as an apologist, and describes the thing with 
the grace of a Mr. Skimpole. 

When the grinding lias once commenced, there 
is no cessation of Labor till it is completed. From 

beginning to end a busy and cheerful scene con- 
tinues. The negroes, 

" AVhoso soro task 

Docs not divide the Sunday from the week," 

work from eighteen to twenty hours, 



"And make the night joint laborer with the day ;" 

though, to lighten the burden as much as possi- 
ble, the gang is divided into two watches, one 
taking the first and the other the last part of the 
night; and, notwithstanding this continued labor, 
the negroes improve in appearance, and appear 
fat and flourishing. They drink freely of cane- 
juice, and the sickly among them revive, and 
become robust and healthy. 

After the grinding is finished, the negroes have 
several holidays, when they are quite at liberty to 
dance and frolic as much as they please ; and the 
cane-song — which is improvised by one of the 
gang, the rest all joining in a prolonged and unin 
telligible chorus — now breaks, night and day, 
upon the ear, in notes " most musical, most mel- 
ancholy." 

The above is inserted as a specimen of the 
facility with which the most horrible facts 
may be told in the genteelest phrase. In a 
work entitled " Travels in Louisiana in 
1802" is the following extract (see Weld's 
" Slavery as It Is," p. 134), from which it 
appears that this cJteerful process of labor- 
ing night and day lasts three months ! 

Now, let any one learn the private his- 
tory of seven hundred blacks, — men and 
women, — compelled to work day and night, 
under the lash of a driver, for a period of 
three months. 

Possibly, if the gentleman who wrote this 
account were employed, with his wife and 
family, in this "cheerful scene" of labor, — 
if be saw the woman that he loved, the 
daughter who was dear to him as his 
soul 
toil which 



own 

forced on in the general gang, in this 



" Does not divide the Sabbath from the week, 
And makes the night joint laborer with the day," 

— possibly, if he saw all this, he might have 
another opinion of its cheerfulness ; and it 
might be an eminently salutary thing if 
every apologist for slavery were to enjoy 
some such privilege for a season, particularly 
its Mr. Ingraham is careful to tell us that 
its effect upon the general health is so excel- 
lent that the negroes improve in appearance, 
and appear fat and flourishing, and that the 
sickly among them revive, and become 
robust and healthy. One would think it a 
surprising fact, if working slaves night and 
day, and giving them cane-juice to drink, 
really produces such salutary results, that 
the practice should not be continued the 
whole year round ; though, perhaps, in this 
case, the negroes would become so fat as to 
be unable to labor. Possibly, it is because 
this healthful process is not longer continued 
that the agricultural societies of Louisiana 
are obliged to set down an annual loss of 
slaves on sugar plantations to the amount 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



of two and a half per cent. This ought to 
be looked into by philanthropists. Perhaps 
working them all night for six months, 
instead of three, might remedy the evil. 

But this periodical pressure is not con- 
fined to the making of sugar. There is also 
a press in the cotton season, as any one can 
observe by reading the Southern newspapers. 
At a certain season of the year, the whole 
interest of the community is engaged in gath- 
ering in the cotton crop. Concerning this 
Mr. Weld says (" Slavery as It Is," page 
34): 

In the cotton and sugar region there is a fear- 
ful amount of desperate gambling, in which, 
though money is the ostensible stake and forfeit, 
human life is the real one. The length to which 
this rivalry is carried at the South and South- 
west, the multitude of planters who engage in it, 
and the recklessness of human life exhibited in 
driving the murderous game to its issue, cannot 
well be imagined by one who has not lived in the 
midst of it. Desire of gain is only one of the 
motives that stimulates them ; the eclat of having 
made the largest crop with a given number of 
hands is also a powerful stimulant ; the Southern 
newspapers, at the crop season, chronicle care- 
fully the " cotton brag," and the " crack cotton- 
picking," and " unparalleled driving," &c. Even 
the editors of professedly religious papers cheer 
on the melee, and sing the triumphs of the victor. 
Among these we recollect the celebrated Rev. J. 
N. Maffit, recently editor of a religious paper at 
Natchez, Miss., in which he took care to assign a 
prominent place and capitals to " the cotton 

BRAG." 

As a specimen, of recent date, of this kind 
of affair, we subjoin the following from the 
Fairfield Herald, Winsboro', S. C, Nov. 
4, 1852. 

COTTON-PICKING. 

We find in many of our southern and western 
exchanges notices of the amount of cotton picked 
by hands, and the quantity by each hand ; and, 
as we have received a similar account, which we 
have not seen excelled, so far as regards the quan- 
tity picked by one hand, we with pleasure fur- 
nish the statement, with the remark that it is 
from a citizen of this district, overseeing for Maj. 
H. W. Parr. 

''Broad River, Oct. 12, 1852. 

"Messrs. Editors: — By way of contributing 
something to your variety (provided it meets your 
approbation), I send you the return of a day's 
picking of cotton, not by picked hands, but the 
fag end of a set of hands on one plantation, the 
able-bodied hands having been drawn out for other 
purposes. Now for the result of a day's picking, 
from sun-up until sun-down, by twenty-two hands, 
— women, boys, and two men: — four thousand 
eight hundred and eighty pounds of clean picked 
cotton, from the stalk. 

"The highest, three hundred and fifty pounds, 
by several ; the lowest, one hundred and fifteen 
pounds. One of the number has picked in the last 
seven and a half days (Sunday excepted) , eleven 



hours each day, nineteen hundred pounds clean cot- 
ton. When any of my agricultural friends beat 
this, in the same time, and during sunshine, I will 
try again. James Steward." 

It seems that this agriculturist professes 
to have accomplished all these extraordinary 
results with what he very elegantly terms 
the "fag end" of a set of hands; and, the 
more to exalt his glory in the matter, he 
distinctly informs the public that there were 
no "able-bodied" hands employed; that 
this whole triumphant result was worked out 
of women and children, and two disabled 
men ; in other words, he boasts that out of 
women and children, and the feeble and 
sickly, Vie has extracted four thousand eight 
hundred and eighty pounds of clean picked 
cotton in a day ; and that one of these same 
hands has been made to pick nineteen hun- 
dred pounds of clean cotton in a week ! and 
adds, complacently, that, when any of his 
agricultural friends beat this, in the same 
time, and during sunshine, he " will try 
again." 

Will any of our readers now consider the 
forcing up of the hands on Legree's planta- 
tion an exaggeration? Yet see how com- 
placently this account is quoted by the 
editor, as a most praiseworthy and laudable 
thing ! 

"Behold the hire of the laborers 
who have reaped down your fields, 
which is of you kept back by fraud, 
crieth ! and the cries of them which 
have reaped are entered into the 
ears of the lord of sabaoth." 

That the representations of the style of 
dwelling-house, modes of housekeeping, and, 
in short, the features of life generally, as 
described on Legree's plantation, are not 
wild and fabulous drafts on the imagination, 
or exaggerated pictures of exceptional cases, 
there is the most abundant testimony before 
the world, and has been for a long number 
of years. Let the reader weigh the follow- 
ing testimony with regard to the dwellings 
of the negroes, which has been for some 
years before the world, in the work of Mr. 
Weld. It shows the state of things in this 
respect, at least up to the year 1838. 

Mr. Stephen E. Maltby, Inspector of Provisions, 
Skaneateles, N. Y., who has lived in Alabama. 
— " The huts where the slaves slept generally con- 
tained but one apartment, and that without floor." 

Mr. George A. Avery, elder of the 4th Presby- 
terian Church, Rochester, N. Y., who lived four 
years in Virginia. — "Amongst all the negro 
cabins which 1 saw in Virginia, I cannot call to mind 
one in which there was any other floor than the 
earth ; anything that a Northern laborer, or 



44 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



mechanic, white or colored, would call a bed, nor a 
solitary partition, to separate the sexes." 

William Ladd, Esq., Minot, Maine, President 
of the American Peace Society, formerly a slave- 
holder in Florida. — " The dwellings of the slaves 
were palmetto huts, built by themselves of stakes 
and poles, thatched with the palmetto-leaf. The 
door, when they had any, was generally of the 
same materials, sometimes boards found on the 
beach. They had rto floors, no separate apart- 
ments ; except the Guinea negroes had sometimes 
a small enclosure for their ' god houses.' These 
huts the slaves built themselves after task and on 
Sundays." 

Rev. Joseph M. Sadd, pastor Presbyterian 
Church, Castile, Greene Co., N. Y., who lived in 
Missouri five years previous to 1837. — " The slaves 
live generally in miserable huts, which are without 
floors ; and have a single apartment only, Avhere 
both sexes are herded promiscuously together." 

Mr. George W. Westgate, member of the Con- 
gregational church in Quincy, Illinois, who has 
spent a number of years in slave states. — " On old 
plantations the negro quarters are of frame and 
clapboards, seldom affording a comfortable shelter 
from wind or rain ; their size varies from eight 
by ten to ten by twelve feet, and six or eight feet 
high ; sometimes there is a hole cut for a window, 
but I never saw a sash, or glass, in any. In the new 
country, and in the woods, the quarters are gen- 
erally built of logs, of similar dimensions." 

Mr. Cornelius Johnson, a member of a Christian 
church in Farmington, Ohio. Mr. J. lived in 
Mississippi in 1837-8. — " Their houses were com- 
monly built of logs ; sometimes they were framed, 
often they had no floor ; some of them have two 
apartments, commonly but one ; each of those 
apartments contained a family. Sometimes these 
families consisted of a man and his wife and chil- 
dren, while in other instances persons of both sexes 
were thrown together, without any regard to family 
relationship." 

The Western Medical Reformer, in an article on 
the Cachexia Africana, by a Kentucky physician, 
thus speaks of the huts of the slaves : " They are 
crowded together in a small hut, and sometimes 
having an imperfect and sometimes no floor, and 
seldom raised from the ground, ill ventilated, and 
surrounded with filth." 

Mr. William Leftwich, a native of Virginia, but 
has resided most of his life in Madison Co., Ala- 
bama. — " The dwellings of the slaves are log huts, 
from ten to twelve feet square, often without 
windows, doors or doors ; they have neither chairs, 
table, or bedstead." 

Reuben L Maey, of Hudson, N. Y., a member 
of the religious society- of Friends. He lived in 
S mth I 'arolina in L818-19. — " The houses fur the 
field-slaves were aboul fourteen feet square, built 

in the coarsest manner, with one room, without 
any chimney or flooring , with a hole in the roof to 
lit llw smoke <ni/." 

Mr. Lemuel Sapington, of Lancaster, Pa.,ana- 
tive "I' Maryland, formerly a slave-holder. — " The 
descriptions generally given of negro quarters are 
correct; the quarters are without floors, and not 
sufficient to keep off the inclemency of theweather; 
they are uncomfortable both in sum r and win- 
ter." 

Rev. John Rankin, a, native of Tennessee. — 
"When they return to their miserable huts at 
night, they and not there the means of comfort- 



able rest ; but on the cold ground they must lie 
without covering, and shiver ivhile they slumber.'''' 

Philemon Bliss, Esq., Elyria, Ohio, who lived 
in Florida in 1835. — " The dwellings of the slaves 
are usually small open log huts, with but one apart- 
ment, and very generally without floors. " 

Slavery as It Is, p. 43. 

The Rev. C. C. Jones, to whom we have 
already alluded, when taking a survey of 
the condition of the negroes considered as a 
field for missionary effort, takes into account 
all the conditions of their external life. He 
speaks of a part of Georgia where as much 
attention had been paid to the comfort of the 
negro as in any part of the United States. 
He gives the following picture : 

Their general mode of living is coarse and vul- 
gar. Many negro houses are small, low to the 
ground, blackened with smoke, often with dirt 
floors, and the furniture of the plainest kind. On 
some estates the houses are framed, weather- 
boarded, neatly white-washed, and made suffi- 
ciently large and comfortable in every respect. 
The improvement in the size, material and finish, 
of negro houses, is extending. Occasionally they 
may be found constructed of tabby or brick. 

Religious Instruction of the Negroes, p. 116. 

Now, admitting what Mr. Jones says, to 
wit, that improvements with regard to the 
accommodation of the negroes are continually 
making among enlightened and Christian 
people, still, if we take into account how 
many people there are who are neither en- 
lightened nor Christian, how unproductive 
of any benefit to the master all these im- 
provements are, and how entirely, therefore, 
they must be the result either of native 
generosity or of Christian sentiment, tire 
reader may fairly conclude that such im- 
provements are the exception, rather than 
the rule. 

A friend of the writer, travelling in Geor- 
gia during the last month, thus writes : 

Upon the long line of rice and cotton planta- 
tions extending along the railroad from Savannah 
to this city, the negro quarters contain scarcely a 
single hut which a Northern farmer would deem fit 
shelter for his cattle. They are all built of poles, 
with the ends so slightly notched that they are al- 
most as open as children's cob-houses (which they 
very much resemble), without a. single glazed win- 
dow, and with only one mud chimney to each clus- 
ter of from four to eight cabins. And yet our fel- 
low-travellers were quietly expatiating upon the 
negro's strange inability to endure cold weather ! 

Let this modern picture be compared with 
the account given by the Rev. Horace Moul- 
ton, who spent five years in Georgia between 
1817 and 1824, and it will be seen, in that 
stair at least, there is sonic resemblance be- 
tween the more remote and more recent 
practice : 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



45 



The huts of the slaves are mostly of the poorest 
kind. They are not as good as those temporary 
shanties which are thrown up beside railroads. 
They are erected with posts and crotches, with 
but little or no frame-work about them. They 
have no stoves or chimneys ; some of them have 
something like a fireplace at one end, and a board 
or two oft at that side, or on the roof, to let off 
the smoke. Others have nothing like a fireplace 
in them ; in these the fire is sometimes made in 
the middle of the hut. These buildings have but 
one apartment in them ; the places where they 
pass in and out serve both for doors and windows ; 
the sides and roofs are covered with coarse, and 
in many instances with refuse boards. In warm 
weather, especially in the spring, the slaves keep 
up a smoke, or fire and smoke, all night, to drive 
away the gnats and mosquitos, which are very 
troublesome in all the low country of the South ; 
so much so that the whites sleep under frames 
with nets over them, knit so fine that the mosqui- 
tos cannot fly through them. 

Slavery as It Is, p. 19. 

The same Mr. Moulton gives the follow- 
ing account of the food of the slaves, and the 
mode of procedure on the plantation on 
which he was engaged. It may he here 
mentioned that at the time he was at the 
South he was engaged in certain business 
relations which caused him frequently to 
visit different plantations, and to have under 
his control many of the slaves. His oppor- 
tunities for observation, therefore, were quite 
intimate. There is a homely matter-of-fact 
distinctness in the style that forbids the idea 
of its being a fancy sketch : 

it was a general custom, wherever I have been, 
for the master to give each of his slaves, male 
and female, one peck of corn per week for their food. 
This, at fifty cents per bushel, which was all that 
it was worth when I was there, would amount to 
twelve and a half cents per week for board per head. 

It cost me, upon an average, when at the South, 
one dollar per day for board ; — the price of four- 
teen bushels of corn per week. This would make 
my board equal in amount to the board of forty-six 
slaves ! This- is all that good or bad masters allow 
their slaves, round about Savannah, on the planta- 
tions. One peck of gourd-seed corn is to be meas- 
ured out to each slave once every week. One 
man with whom I labored, however, being desir- 
ous to get all the work out of his hands he could, 
before I left (about fifty in number), bought for 
them every week, or twice a week, a beef's head 
from market. With this they made a soup in a 
large iron kettle, around which the hands came at 
meal-time, and dipping out the soup, would mix 
it with their hominy, and eat it as though it 
were a feast. This man permitted his slaves to 
eat twice a day while I was doing a job for him. 
lie promised me a beaver hat, and as good a suit 
of clothes as could be bought in the city, if I would 
accomplish so much for him before I returned to 
the North ; giving me the entire control over his 
slaves. Thus you may see the temptations over- 
seers sometimes have, to get all the work they 
can out of the poor slaves. The above is an excep- 
tion to the general rule of feeding. For, in all 
other places where L worked and visited, the 



slaves had nothing from their masters but the corn, 
or its equivalent in potatoes or rice ; and to this 
they were not permitted to come but once a day. 
The custom was to blow the horn early in the 
morning, as a signal for the hands to rise and go 
to work. When commenced, they continue work 
until about eleven o'clock A. M., when, at the 
signal, all hands left off, and went into their huts, 
made their fires, made their corn-meal into hom- 
iny or cake, ate it, and went to work again at 
the signal of the horn, and worked until night, or 
until their tasks were done. Some cooked their 
breakfast in the field while at work. Each slave 
must grind his own corn in a hand-mill after he 
has done his work at night. There is generally 
one hand-mill on every plantation for the use of 
the slaves. 

Some of the planters have no corn ; others often 
get out. The substitute for it is the equivalent of 
one peck of corn, either in rice or sweet potatoes, 
neither of which is as good for the slaves as corn. 
They complain more of being faint when fed on 
rice or potatoes than when fed on corn. I was 
with one man a few weeks who gave me his 
hands to do a job of work, and, to save time, one 
cooked for all the rest. The following course was 
taken : — Two crotched sticks were driven down at 
one end of the yard, and, a small pole being laid 
on the crotches, they swung a large iron kettle on 
the middle of the pole ; then made up a fire under 
the kettle, and boiled the hominy ; when ready, 
the hands were called around this kettle with 
their wooden plates and spoons. They dipped 
out and ate standing around the kettle, or sitting 
upon the ground, as best suited their convenience. 
AVhen they had potatoes, they took them out with 
their hands, and ate them. 

Slavery as It Is, p. 18 . 

Thomas Clay, Esq., a slave-holder of 
Georgia, and a most benevolent man, and 
who interested himself very successfully in 
endeavoring to promote the improvement of 
the negroes, in his address before the Geor- 
gia Presbytery, 1833, says of their food, 
" The quantity allowed by custom is a peck 
of corn a week."' 

The Maryland Journal and Baltimore 
Advertiser, May 30, 1788, says, " A single 
peck of corn, or the same measure of rice, is 
the ordinary provision for a hard-working 
slave, to which a small quantity of meat is 
occasionally, though rarely, added." 

Captain William Ladd, of Minot, Maine, 
formerly a slave-holder in Florida, says, 
" The usual allowance of food was a quart 
of corn a day to a full-task hand, with a 
modicum of salt ; kind masters allowed a 
peck of corn a week." 

The law of North Carolina provides that 
the master shall give his slave a quart of 
corn a day, which is less than a peck a week 
by one quart. — Haywood's Manual. 525 ; 
Slaveiy as It Is, p. 29. % The master, there- 
fore, who gave a peck a week would feel 
that he was going beyond the law, and giv- 
ing a quart for generosity. 



46 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



This condition of things will appear far 
more probable in the section of country 
where the scene of the story is laid. It is 
in the south-western states, where no pro- 
vision is raised on the plantations, but the 
supply for the slaves is all purchased from 
the more northern states. 

Let the reader now imagine the various 
temptations which might occur to retrench 
the allowance of the slaves, under these cir- 
cumstances ; — scarcity of money, financial 
embarrassment, high price of provisions, and 
various causes of the kind, bring a great 
influence upon the master or overseer. 

At the time when it was discussed whether 
the State of Missouri should be admitted as 
a slave state, the measure, like all measures 
for the advancement of this horrible system, 
was advocated on the good old plea of hu- 
manity to the negroes ; thus Mr. Alexander 
Smyth, in his speech on the slavery question, 
Jan. 21, 1820, says: 

By confining the slaves to the Southern States, 
where crops are raised for exportation, and bread 
and meat are purchased, you doom them to scarcity 
and hunger. It is proposed to hem in the blacks 
where they are ill fed. 

Slavery as It Is, p. 28. 

This is a simple recognition of the state 
of things we have adverted to. To the 
same purport, Mr. Asa A. Stone, a theo- 
logical student, who resided near Natchez, 
Miss., in 1834-5, says : 

On almost every plantation, the hands suffer 
more or less from hunger at some seasons of almost 
every year. There is always a good deal of suffer- 
ing from hunger. On many plantations, and par- 
ticularly in Louisiana, the slaves are in a condi- 
tion of almost utter famishment, during a great por- 
tion of the year. — Ibid. 

Mr. Tobias Baudinot, St. Albans, Ohio, 
a member of the Methodist Church, who for 
some years was a navigator on the Missis- 
sippi, says : 

The slaves down the Mississippi are half -starved. 
The boats, when they stop at night, are constantly 
boarded by slaves, begging for something to eat. 

Ibid. 



On the whole, while it is freely and cheer- 
fully admitted that many individuals have 
made most commendable advances in regard 
to the provision for the physical comfort of 
the slave, still it is to be feared that the 
picture of the accommodations on Lcgrce's 
plantation has as yet too many counterparts. 
Lest, however, the author should be sus- 
pected of keeping back anything which 
might serve to throw light on the subject, 



she will insert in full the following incidents 
on the other side, from the pen of the accom- 
plished Professor Ingraham. How far these 
may be regarded as exceptional cases, or as 
pictures of the general mode of providing 
for slaves, may safely be left to the good 
sense of the reader. The professor's anec- 
dotes are as follows : 

" "What can you do with so much tobacco'?" 
said a gentleman, — who related the circumstance 
to me, — on hearing a planter, whom he was visit- 
ing, give an order to his teamster to bring two 
hogsheads of tobacco out to the estate from the 
" Landing." 

" I purchase it for my negroes ; it is a harmless 
indulgence, which it gives me pleasure to afford 
them." 

" Why are you at the trouble and expense of 
having high-post bedsteads for your negroes?" 
said a gentleman from the North, while walking 
through the handsome " quarters," or village, for 
the slaves, then in progress on a plantation near 
Natchez — addressing the proprietor. 

" To suspend their ' bars ' from, that they may 
not be troubled with mosquitos." 

" Master, me would like, if you please, a little 
bit gallery front my house." 
" For what, Peter?" 

" 'Cause, master, the sun too hot [an odd rea- 
son for a negro to give] that side, and when ha 
rain we no able to keep de door open." 

" Well, well, when a carpenter gets a little lei- 
sure, you shall have one." 

A few weeks after, I was at the plantation, and 
riding past the quarters one Sabbath morning, 
beheld Peter, his wife and children, with his old 
father, all sunning themselves in the new gallery. 
" Missus, you promise me a Chrismus gif." 
"Well, Jane, there is a new calico frock for 
you." 

" It werry pretty, Missus," said Jane, eying it 
at a distance without touching it, " but me prefer 
muslin, if you please : muslin de fashion dis 
Chrismus." 

" Very well, Jane, call to-morrow, and you shall 
have a muslin." 

The writer would not think of controvert- 
ing the truth of these anecdotes. Any prob- 
able amount of high-post bedsteads and 
mosquito "bars," of tobacco distributed as 
gratuity, and verandas constructed by lei- 
surely carpenters for the sunning of fasti- 
dious negroes, may be conceded, and they 
do in no whit impair the truth of the other 
facts. When the reader remembers that the 
"gang" of some opulent owners amounts 
to from five to seven hundred working hands, 
besides children, he can judge how exten- 
sively these accommodations are likely to be 
provided. Let them be safely thrown into 
the account, for what they are worth. 

At all events, it is pleasing to end off so 
disagreeable a chapter with some more agree- 
able images. [Sec Appendix.] 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



47 



CHAPTER XI. 

SELECT INCIDENTS OF LAWFUL TRADE. 

In this chapter of Uncle Tom's Cabin 
were recorded some of the most highly- 
wrought and touching incidents of the slave- 
trade. It will he well to authenticate' a 
few of them. 

One of the first sketches presented to view 
is an account of the separation of a very old, 
decrepit negro woman from her young son, 
by a sheriff's sale. The writer is sorry to 
say that not the slightest credit for inven- 
tion is due to her in this incident. She 
found it, almost exactly as it stands, in the 
published journal of a young Southerner, 
related as a scene to which he was eye-wit- 
ness. The only circumstance which she has 
omitted in the narrative was one of addi- 
tional inhumanity and painfulness which he 
had delineated. He represents the boy as 
being bought by a planter, who fettered his 
hands, and tied a rope round his neck which 
he attached to the neck of his horse, thus 
compelling the child to trot by his side. 
This incident alone was suppressed by the 
author. 

Another scene of fraud and cruelty, in 
the same chapter, is described as perpetrated 
by a Kentucky slave-master, who sells a 
woman to a trader, and induces her to go 
with him by the deceitful assertion that she 
is to be taken down the river a short dis- 
tance, to work at the same hotel with her 
husband. This was an instance which oc- 
curred under the writer's own observation, 
some years since, when she was going down 
the Ohio river. The woman was very re- 
spectable both in appearance and dress. The 
writer recalls her image now with distinct- 
ness, attired with great neatness in a white 
wrapper, her clothing and hair all arranged 
with evident care, and having with her a 
prettily-dressed boy about seven years of 
age. She had also a hair trunk of clothing, 
which showed that she had been carefully 
and respectably brought up. It will be 
seen, in perusing the account, that the 
incident is somewhat altered to suit the pur- 
pose of the story, the woman being there 
represented as carrying with her a young 
infant. 

The custom of unceremoniously separating 
the infant from its mother, when the latter 
is about to be taken from a Northern to a 
Southern market, is a matter of every-day 
notoriety in the trade. It is not done oc- 
casionally and sometimes, but always, when- 



ever there is occasion for it; and the moth- 
er's agonies are no more regarded than those 
of a cow when her calf is separated from 
her. 

The reason of this is, that the care and 
raising of children is no part of the intention 
or provision of a Southern plantation. They 
are a trouble ; they detract from the value 
of the mother as a field-hand, and it is more 
expensive to raise them than to buy them 
ready raised ; they are therefore left behind 
in the making up of a conle. Not longer 
ago than last summer, the writer was con- 
versing with Thomas Strother, a slave 
minister of the gospel in St. Louis, for 
whose emancipation she was making some 
effort. He incidentally mentioned to her a 
scene which he had witnessed but a short 
time before, in which a young woman of his 
acquaintance came to him almost in a state 
of distraction, telling him that she had been 
sold to go South with a trader, and leave 
behind her a nursing infant. 

In Lewis Clark's narrative he mentions 
that a master in his neighborhood sold a 
woman and child to a trader, with the charge 
that he should not sell the child from its 
mother. The man, however, traded off the 
child in the very next town, in payment of 
his tavern-bill. 

The following testimony is from a gentle- 
man who writes from New Orleans to the 
National Era. 

This writer says : 

While at Robinson, or Tyree Springs, twenty 
miles from Nashville, on the borders of Kentucky 
and Tennessee, my hostess said to me, one day, 
"Yonder comes a gang of slaves, chained." I 
went to the road-side and viewed them. For the 
better answering my purpose of observation, I 
stopped the white man in front, who was at his 
ease in a one-horse wagon, and asked him if those 
slaves were for sale. I counted them and observed 
their position. They were divided by three one- 
horse wagons, each containing a man-merchant, 
so arranged as to command the whole gang. Some 
were unchained ; sixty were chained in two com- 
panies, thirty in each, the right hand of one to 
the left hand of the other opposite one, making 
fifteen each side of a large ox-chain, to which 
every hand was fastened, and necessarily compelled 
to hold up, — men and women promiscuously, and 
about in equal proportions , — all young people. 
No children here, except a few in a wagon behind, 
which were the only children in the four gangs. 
I said to a respectable mulatto woman in the 
house, "Is it true that the negro-traders take 
mothers from their babies?" " Massa, it is 
true; for here, last week, such a girl [naming 
her], who lives about a mile off, was taken after 
dinner, — knew nothing of it in the morning, — 
sold, put into the gang, and her baby given away 
to a neighbor. She was a stout young woman, 
and brought a good pricei" 



48 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



Nor is the pitiful lie to be regarded which 
says that these unhappy mothers and fathers, 
husbands and wives, do not feel when the 
most sacred ties are thus severed. Every 
day and hour bears living witness of the 
falsehood of this slander, the more false be- 
cause spoken of a race peculiarly affectionate, 
and strong, vivacious and vehement, in the 
expression of their feelings. 

The case which the writer supposed of 
the woman's throwing herself overboard is 
not by any means a singular one. "Witness 
the following recent fact, which appeared 
under the head of 

ANOTHER INCIDENT FOR "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN." 

The editorial correspondent of the Oneida, (N. 
Y.) Telegraph, writing from a steamer on the 
Mississippi river, gives the following sad story : 

"At Louisville, a gentleman took passage, 
having with him a family of blacks, — husband, 
wife and children. The master was bound for 
Memphis, Term., at which place he intended to 
take all except the man ashore. The latter was 
hand-cuffed, and although his master said nothing 
of his intention, the negro made up his mind, from 
appearances, as well as from the remarks of those 
around him, that he was destined for the Southern 
market. We reached Memphis during the night, 
and whilst within sight of the town, just before 
landing, the negro caused his wife to divide their 
things, as though resigned to the intended sepa- 
ration, and then, taking a moment when his 
master's back was turned, ran forward and jumped 
into the river. Of course he sank, and his master 
was several hundred dollars poorer than a moment 
before. That was all ; at least, scarcely any one 
mentioned it the next morning. I was obliged to 
get my information from the deck hands, and did 
not hear a remark concerning it in the cabin. In 
justice to the master, I should say, that after the 
occurrence he disclaimed any intention to separate 
them. Appearances, however, are quite against 
him, if I have been rightly informed. This sad 
affair needs no comment. It is an argument, 
however, that I might have used to-day, with 
some effect, whilst talking with a highly-intelli- 
gent Southerner of the evils of slavery. He had 
been reading Uncle Tom's Cabin, and spoke of it 
as a novel, which, like other romances, was well 
calculated to excite the sympathies, by the recital 
of heart-touching incidents which never had an ex- 
istence, except hi the imagination of the writer." 

Instances have occurred where mothers, 
whose children were about to be sold from 
them, have, in their desperation, murdered 
their own offspring, to save them from this 
worst kind of orphanage. A case of this 
kind has been recently tried in the United 
States, and was alluded to. a week or two 
ago, by Mr. Giddings, in his speech on the 
floor of Congress. 

An American gentleman from Italy, com- 
plaining of the effect of "Uncle Tom's 
Cabin" on the Italian mind, states that 



images of fathers dragged from their families 
to be sold into slavery, and of babes torn 
from the breasts of weeping mothers, are 
constantly presented before the minds of 
the people as scenes of e very-day life in 
America. The author can only say, sorrow- 
fully, that it is only the truth which is thus 
presented. 

These things are, every day, part and 
parcel of one of the most thriving trades 
that is carried on in America. The only 
difference between us and foreign nations is, 
that we have got used to it, and they have 
not. The thing has been done, and done 
again, day after day, and year after year, 
reported and lamented over in every variety 
of way; but it is going on this day with 
more briskness than ever before, and such 
scenes as we have described are enacted 
oftener, as the author will prove when she 
comes to the chapter on the internal slave- 
trade. 

The incident in this same chapter which 
describes the scene where the wife of the 
unfortunate article, catalogued as "John 
aged 30," rushed on board the boat and 
threw her arms around him, with moans and 
lamentations, was a real incident. The 
gentleman who related it was so stirred in 
his spirit at the sight, that he addressed the 
trader in the exact words which the writer 
represents the young minister as having 
used in her narrative. 



My friend, how can you, how dare you, carry 
on a trade like this 1 Look at those poor crea- 
tures ! Here I am, rejoicing in my heart that I 
am going home to my wife and child ; and the 
same bell which is the signal to carry me onward 
towards them will part this poor man and his 
wife forever. Depend upon it, God will bring 
you into judgment for this. 

If that gentleman has read the work. — 
as perhaps he has before now, — he has 
probably recognized his own words. One 
affecting incident in the narrative, as it 
really occurred, ought to be mentioned. The 
wife was passionately bemoaning her hus- 
band's fate, as about to be forever separated 
from all that he held dear, to be sold to the 
hard usage of a Southern plantation. The 
husband, in reply, used that very simple but 
sublime expression which the writer has 
placed in the mouth of Uncle Tom, in simi- 
lar circumstances : " There 7/ be the same 
God there that there is here." 

One other incident mentioned in " Uncle 
Tom's Cabin" may, perhaps, be as well 
verified in this place as in any other. 

The case of old Pruc was related by a 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



49 



brother and sister of the writer, as follows : 
She was the woman who supplied rusks and 
other articles of the kind at the house where 
they boarded. Her manners, appearance 
and character, were just as described. One 
day another servant came in her place, 
bringing the rusks. The sister of the 
writer inquired what had become of Prue. 
She seemed reluctant to answer for some 
time, but at last said that they had taken 
her into the cellar and beaten her, and that 
the flies had got at her, and she was dead ! 

It is well known that there are no cellars, 
properly so called, in New Orleans, the 
nature of the ground being such as to forbid 
digging. The slave who used the word had 
probably been imported from some state 
where cellars were in use, and applied the 
term to the place which was used for the 
oz-dinary purposes of a cellar. A cook 
who lived in the writer's family, having lived 
most of her life on a plantation, always ap- 
plied the descriptive terms of the plantation 
to the very limited enclosures and retinue 
of a very plain house and yard. 

This same lady, while living in the same 
place, used frequently to have her compas- 
sion excited by hearing the wailings of a 
sickly baby in- a house adjoining their own, 
as also the objurgations and tyrannical abuse 
of a ferocious virago upon its mother.^ She 
once got an opportunity to speak to its 
mother, who appeared heart-broken and 
dejected, and inquired what was the matter 
with her child. Her answer was that she 
had had a fever, and that her milk was all 
dried away ; and that her mistress was set 
against her child, and would not buy milk 
for it. She had tried to feed it on her own 
coarse food, but it pined and cried continu- 
ally ; and in witness of this she brought the 
baby to her. It was emaciated to a skeleton. 
The lady took the little thing to a friend of 
hers in the house who had been recently con- 
fined, and who was suffering from a redun- 
dancy of milk, and begged her to nurse it. 
The miserable sight of the little, famished, 
wasted thing affected the mother so as to 
overcome all other considerations, and she 
placed it to her breast, when it revived, and 
took food with an eagerness which showed 
how much it had suffered. But the child 
was so reduced that this proved only a tran- 
sient alleviation. It was after this almost im- 
possible to get sight of the woman, and the 
violent temper of her mistress was such as 
to make it difficult to interfere in the case. 
The lady secretly afforded what aid she could, 
though, as she confessed, with a sort of mis- 



giving that it was a cruelty to try to hold 
back the poor little sufferer from the refuge 
of the grave ; and it was a relief to her when 
at last its wailings ceased, and it went where 
the weary are at rest. This is one of those 
cases which go to show that the interest of 
the owner will not always insure kind treat- 
ment of the slave. 

There is one other incident, which the 
writer interwove into the history of the 
mulatto woman who was bought by Legree 
for his plantation. The reader will remem- 
ber that, in telling her story to Emmehne, 
she says : 

"My Mas'r was Mr. Ellis, — lived on Levee- 
street. P'raps you 've seen the house." 

" "Was he good to you?" said Erameline. 

" Mostly, till he tuk sick. He 's lain sick, off 
and on, more than six months, and been orful 
oneasy. 'Pears like he war n't willin' to have 
nobody rest, day nor night; and got so cur'ous, 
there could n't nobody suit him. 'Pears like he 
just grew crosser every day ; kep me up nights 
till I got fairly beat out, and couldn't keep awake 
no longer ; and 'cause I got to sleep one night, 
Lors ! he talk so orful to me, and he tell me he 'd 
sell me to just the hardest master he could find ; 
and he 'd promised me my freedom, too, when he 
died." 

An incident of this sort came under the 
author's observation in the following man- 
ner : A quadroon slave family, liberated by 
the will of the master, settled on Walnut 
Hills, near her residence, and their children 
were received into her family school, taught 
in her house. In this family was a little 
quadroon boy, four or five years of age, with 
a sad, dejected appearance, who excited their 
interest. 

The history of this child, as narrated by 
his friends, was simply this : His mother 
had been the indefatigable nurse of her mas- 
ter, during a lingering and painful sickness, 
which at last terminated his life. She had 
borne all the fatigue of the nursing, both by 
night and by day, sustained in it by his 
promise that she should be rewarded for it 
by her liberty, at his death. Overcome by 
exhaustion and fatigue, she one night fell 
asleep, and he was unable to rouse her. 
The next day, after violently upbraiding 
her, he altered the directions of his will, and 
sold her to a man who was noted in all the 
region round as a cruel master, which sale, 
immediately on his death, which was shortly 
after, took effect. The only mitigation of 
her sentence was that her child was not to 
be taken with her into this dreaded lot, but 
was given to this quadroon family, to be 
brought into a free state. 



50 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



The -writer very well remembers hearing 
this story narrated among a group of liber- 
ated negroes, and their comments on it. A 
peculiar form of grave and solemn irony 
often characterizes the communications of 
this class of people. It is a habit engen- 
dered in slavery to comment upon proceed- 
ings of this kind in language apparently 
respectful to the perpetrators, and which is 
felt to be irony only by a certain peculiarity 
of manner, difficult to describe. After the 
relation of this story, when the writer ex- 
pressed her indignation in no measured 
terms, one of the oldest of the sable circle 
remarked, gravely, 

" The man was a mighty great Christian, 
anyhow." 

The writer warmly expressed her dissent 
from this view, when another of the same 
circle added, 

"Went to glory, anyhow." 

And another continued, 

"Had the greatest kind of a time when 
he was a-dyin' ; said he was goin' straight 
into heaven." 

And when the writer remarked that many 
people thought so who never got there, a sin- 
gular smile of grim approval passed round 
the circle, but no further comments were 
made. This incident has often recurred to 
the writer's mind, as showing the danger to 
the welfare of the master's soul from the pos- 
session of absolute power. A man of justice 
and humanity when in health, is often 
tempted to become unjust, exacting and 
exorbitant, in sickness. If, in these circum- 
stances, he is surrounded by inferiors, from 
whom law and public opinion have taken 
away the rights of common humanity, how 
is he tempted to the exercise of the most 
despotic passions, and, like this unfortunate 
man, to leave the world with the weight of 
these awful words upon his head: "If ye 
forgive not men their trespasses, neither will 
your Father forgive your trespasses." 



CHAPTER XII. 

TOPSY. 

Topsy stands as the representative of a 
large class of the children who are growing 
up under the institution of slavery, — quick, 
active, subtle and ingenious, apparently 
utterly devoid of principle and conscience, 
keenly penetrating, by an instinct which 



of rising above it ; feeling the black skin on 
them, like the mark of Cain, to be a sign of 
reprobation and infamy, and urged on by a 
kind of secret desperation to make their 
" calling and election" in sin " sure." 

Christian people have often been perfectly 
astonished and discouraged, as Miss Ophelia 
was, in the attempt to bring up such chil- 
dren decently and Christianly, under a state 
of things which takes away every stimulant 
which God meant should operate healthfully 
on the human mind. 

We are not now speaking of the Southern 
States merely, but of the New England 
States ; for, startling as it may appear, 
slavery is not yet wholly abolished in the 
free stales of the North. The most un- 
christian part of it, that which gives to it all 
the bitterness and all the sting, is yet, in a 
great measure, unrepealed ; it is the practi- 
cal denial to the negro of the rights of 
human brotherhood. In consequence of 
this, Topsy is a character which may be 
found at the North as well as at the South. 
In conducting the education of negro, 
mulatto and quadroon children, the writer 
has often observed this fact : — that, for a 
certain time, and up to a certain age, they 
kept equal pace with, and were often, supe- 
rior to, the white children with whom they 
were associated ; but that there came a time 
when they became indifferent to learning. 
and made no further progress. This Avas 
invariably at the age when they were old 
enough to reflect upon life, and to perceive 
that society had no place to offer them for 
which anything more would be requisite 
than the rudest and most elementary knowl- 
edge. 

Let us consider how it is with our own 
children ; how few of them would ,ever 
acquire an education from the mere love of 
learning. 

In the process necessary to acquire a 
handsome style of hand-writing, to master 
the intricacies of any language, or to con- 
quer the difficulties of mathematical study, 
how often does the perseverance of the child 
flac, and need to be stimulated by his 
parents and teachers by such considerations 
as these: "It will be necessary for you, in 
such or such a position in life, to possess 
this or that acquirement or accomplishment. 
How could you ever become a merchant, 
without understanding accounts ? How 
could you enter the learned professions, 
without understanding languages 1 If you 
are ignorant and uninformed, you cannot 



exists in the childish mind, the degradation 

of their condition, and the utter hopelessness I take rank as a gentleman in society. 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



51 



Does not every one know that, without 
the stimulus which teachers and parents 
thus continually present, multitudes of chil- 
dren Avould never gain a tolerable educa- 
tion 1 And is it not the absence of all such 
stimulus which has prevented the negro 
child from an equal advance ? 

It is often objected to the negro race that 
they are frivolous and vain, passionately 
fond of show, and are interested only in 
trifles. And who is to blame for all this 7 
Take away all high aims, all noble ambition, 
from any class, and what is left for them to 
be interested in but trifles 1 

The present attorney-general of Liberia, 
Mr. Lewis, is a man who commands the 
highest respect, for talent and ability in his 
position ; yet, while he was in America, it 
is said that, like many other young colored 
men, he was distinguished only for foppery 
and frivolity. What made the change in 
Lewis after he went to Liberia ? Who does 
not see the answer ] Does any one wish to 
know what is inscribed on the seal which 
keeps the great stone over the sepulchre of 
African mind ? It is this, — which was so 
truly said by poor Topsy, — " Nothing but 
a nigger! " 

It is this, burnt into the soul by the 
branding- iron of cruel and unchristian scorn, 
that is a sorer and deeper wound than all 
the physical evils of slavery together. 

There never was a slave who did not feel 
it. Deep, deep down in the dark, still waters 
of his soul is the conviction, heavier, bitterer 
than all others, that he is not regarded as 
a man. On this point may be introduced 
the testimony of one who has known the 
wormwood and the gall of slavery by bitter 
experience. The following letter has been 
received from Dr. Pennington, in relation 
to some inquiries of the author : 

5 50 Laurens-street, 

\ New York, Nov. 30, 1852. 

Mrs. H. B. Stowe. 

Esteemed Madam: I have duly received your 
kind letter in answer to mine of the 15th instant, 
in which you state that you " have an intense curi- 
osity to know how far you have rightly divined 
the heart of the slave." You give me your idea 
in these words : " There lies buried down in the 
heart of the most seemingly careless and stupid 
6lave a bleeding spot, that bleeds and aches, 
though he could scarcely tell why ; and that this 
sore spot is the degradation of his position." 

After escaping from the plantation of Dr. Tilgh- 
man, in Washington County, Md., where I was 
held as a slave, and worked as a blacksmith, I 
came to the State of Pennsylvania, and, after ex- 
periencing there some of the vicissitudes referred 
to in my little published narrative, I came into 



New York State, bringing in my mind a certain 
indescribable feeling of wretchedness. They used 
to say of me at Dr. Tilghman's, " That blacksmith 
Jemmy is a 'cute fellow ; still water runs deep." 
But I confess that " blacksmith Jemmy" was not 
'cute enough to understand the cause of his own 
wretchedness. The current of the still water 
may have run deep, but it did not reach down to 
that awful bed of lava. 

At times I thought it occasioned by the lurking 
fear of betrayal. There was no Vigilance Com- 
mittee at the time, — there were but anti-slavery 
men. I came North with my counsels in my own 
cautious breast. I married a wife, and did not 
tell her I was a fugitive. None of my friends 
knew it. I knew not the means of safety, and 
hence I was constantly in fear of meeting with 
some one who would betray me. 

It was fully two years before I could hold up 
my head ; but still that feeling was in my mind. 
In 1846, after opening my bosom as a fugitive to 
John Hooker, Esq., I felt this much relief, — 
" Thank God there is one brother-man in hard old 
Connecticut that knows my troubles." 

Soon after this, when I sailed to the island of 
Jamaica, and on landing there saw colored men 
in all the stations of civil, social, commercial life, 
where I had seen white men in this country, that 
feeling of wretchedness experienced a sensible re- 
lief, as if some feverish sore had been just reached 
by just the right kind of balm. There was before 
my eye evidence that a colored man is more than 
" a nigger." I went into the House of Assembly 
at Spanishtown, where fifteen out of forty-five 
members were colored men. I went into the 
courts, where I saw in the jury-box colored and 
white men together, colored and white lawyers 
at the bar. I went into the Common Council of 
Kingston ; there I found men of different colors. 
So in all the counting-rooms, &c. &c. 

But still there was this drawback. Somebody 
says, " This is nothing but a nigger island." Now, 
then, my old trouble came back again ; " a nigger 
among niggers is but a nigger still." 

In 1849, when I undertook my second visit to 
Great Britain, I resolved to prolong and extend my 
travel and intercourse with the best class of men, 
with a view to see if I could banish that trouble- 
some old ghost entirely out of my mind. In Eng- 
land, Scotland, Wales, France, Germany, Belgium 
and Prussia, my whole power has been concen- 
trated on this object. " I '11 be a man, and I '11 
kill off this enemy which has haunted me these 
twenty years and more." I believe I have suc- 
ceeded in some good degree ; at least, I have now 
no more trouble on the score of equal manhood 
with the whites. My European tour was certainly 
useful, because there the trial was fair and honor- 
able. I had nothing to complain of. I got what 
was due to man, and I was expected to do what 
was due from man to man. I sought not to be 
treated as a pet. I put myself into the harness, 
and wrought manfully in the first pulpits, and the 
platforms in peace congresses, conventions, anni- 
versaries, commencements, &c. ; and in these ex- 
ercises that rusty old iron came out of my soul, 
and went " clean away." 

You say again you have never seen a slave, how 
ever careless and merry-hearted, who had not this 
sore place, and that did not shrink or get angry 
if a finger was laid on it. I see that you have 
been a close observer of negro nature. 



52 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 



So far as I understand your idea, I think you 
are perfectly correct in the impression you have 
received, as explained in your note. 

0, Mrs. Stowe, slavery is an awful system ! It 
takes man as God made him ; it demolishes him, 
and then mis-creates him, or perhaps I should 
say mal-creates him ! 

Wishing you good health and good success in 
your arduous work, 

I am yours, respectfully, 

J. W. C. Pennington. 



People of intelligence, who have had the 
care of slaves, have often made this remark 
to the writer : " They are a singular whim- 
sical people ; you can do a great deal more 
with them by humoring some of their prej- 
udices, than by bestowing on them the 
most substantial favors." On inquiring 
what these prejudices were, the reply would 
be, " They like to have their weddings ele- 
gantly celebrated, and to have a good deal 
of notice taken of their funerals, and to 
give and go to parties dressed and appear- 
ing like white people ; and they will often 
put up with material inconveniences, and 
suffer themselves to be worked very hard, 
if they are humored in these respects." 

Can any one think of this without com- 
passion 1 Poor souls ! willing to bear with 
so much for simply this slight acknowledg- 
ment of their common humanity. To honor 
their weddings and funerals is, in some sort, 
acknowledging that they are human, and 
therefore they prize it. Hence we see the 
reason of the passionate attachment which 
often exists in a faithful slave to a good 
master. It is, in fact, a transfer of his 
identity to his master. A stern law and an 
unchristian public sentiment has taken away 
his birthright of humanity, erased his name 
from the catalogue of men, and made him 
an anomalous creature — neither man nor 
brute. When a kind master recognizes his 
humanity, and treats, him as a humble com- 
panion and a friend, there is no end to 
the devotion and gratitude which he thus 
excites. He is to the slave a deliverer and 
a saviour from the curse which lies on his 
hapless race. Deprived of all legal rights 
and privileges, all opportunity or hope of 
personal advancement or honor, he transfers, 
as it were, his whole existence into his mas- 
ter's, and appropriates his rights, his position, 
his honor, as his own ; and thus enjoys a 
kind of reflected sense of what it might be 
to be a man himself. Hence it is that the 
appeal to the more generous part of the 
negro character is seldom made in vain. 

An acquaintance of the writer was mar- 
ried to a gentleman in Louisiana, who was 



the proprietor of some eight hundred slaves. 
He, of course, had a large train of servants 
in his domestic establishment. When about 
to enter upon her duties, she was warned 
that the servants were all so thievish that 
she would be under the necessity, in com- 
mon with all other housekeepers, of keep- 
ing everything under lock and key. She, 
however, announced her intention of train- 
ing her servants in such a manner as to 
make this unnecessary. Her ideas were 
ridiculed as chimerical, but she resolved to 
carry them into practice. The course she 
pursued was as follows : She called all the 
family servants together ; told them that it 
would be a great burden and restraint upon 
her to be obliged to keep everything locked 
from them ; that she had heard that they 
were not at all to be trusted, but that she could 
not help hoping that they were much better 
than they had been represented. She told 
them that she should provide abundantly for 
all their wants, and then that she should leave 
her stores unlocked, and trust to their honor. 

The idea that they were supposed capable 
of having any honor struck a new chord at 
once in every heart. The servants appeared 
most grateful for the trust, and there was 
much public spirit excited, the older and 
graver ones exerting themselves to watch 
over the children, that nothing might be done 
to destroy this new-found treasure of honor. 

At last, however, the lady discovered 
that some depredations had been made on 
her cake by some of the juvenile part of the 
establishment ; she, therefore, convened all 
the servants, and stated the fact to them. She 
remarked that it was not on account of the 
value of the cake that she felt annoyed, but 
that they must be sensible that it would not 
be pleasant for her to have it indiscriminately 
fingered and handled, and that, therefore, 
she should set some cake out upon a table, 
or some convenient place, and beg that all 
those who were disposed to take it would go 
there and help themselves, and allow the 
rest to remain undisturbed in the closet. 
She states that the cake stood upon the 
table and dried, without a morsel of it being 
touched, and that she never afterwards had 
any trouble in this respect. 

A little time after, a new carriage was 
bought, and one night the leather boot of it 
was found to be missing. Before her hus- 
band had time to take any steps on the sub- 
ject, the servants of the family called a 
convention among themselves, and instituted 
an inquiry into the offence. The boot was 
found and promptly restored, though they 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



53 



would not reveal to their master and mis- 
tress the name of the offender. 

One other anecdote which this lady re- 
lated illustrates that peculiar devotion of a 
slave to a good master, to which allusion 
has been made. Her husband met with his 
death by a sudden and melancholy accident. 
He had a personal attendant and confiden- 
tial servant who had grown up with him 
from childhood. This servant was so over- 
whelmed with grief as to be almost stupefied. 
On the day of the funeral a brother of his 
deceased master inquired of him if he had 
performed a certain commission for his mis- 
tress. The servant said that he had forgotten 
it. Not perceiving his feelings at the mo- 
ment, the gentleman replied, " I am surprised 
that you should neglect any command of 
your mistress, when she is in such afflic- 
tion." 

This remark was the last drop in the full 
cup. The poor fellow fell to the ground 
entirely insensible, and the family were 
obliged to spend nearly two hours employ- 
ing various means to restore his vitality. 
The physician accounted for his situation 
by saying that there had been such a rush 
of all the blood in the body towards the 
heart, that there was actual danger of a 
rupture of that organ, — a literal death by 
a broken heart. 

Some thoughts may be suggested by Miss 
Ophelia's conscientious but unsuccessful 
efforts in the education of Topsy. 

Society has yet need of a great deal of 
enlightening as to the means of restoring 
the vicious and degraded to virtue. 

It has been erroneously supposed that with 
brutal and degraded natures only coarse and 
brutal measures could avail ; and yet it has 
been found, by those who have most experi- 
ence, that their success with this class of 
society has been just in proportion to the 
delicacy and kindliness with which they 
have treated them. 

Lord Shaftsbury, who has won so honor- 
able a fame by his benevolent interest in the 
efforts made for the degraded lower classes 
of his own land, says, in a recent letter to 
the author : 

You are right about Topsy ; our ragged schools 
-will afford you many instances of poor children, 
hardened by kicks, insults and neglect, moved to 
tears and docility by the first word of kindness. 
It opens new feelings, develops, as it were, a new 



nature, and brings the wretched outcast into the 
family of man. 

Recent efforts which have been made 
among unfortunate females in some of the 
worst districts of New York show the same 
thing. What is it that rankles deepest in 
the breast of fallen woman, that makes her 
so hopeless and irreclaimable? It is that 
burning consciousness of degradation which 
stings worse than cold or hunger, and makes 
her shrink from the face of the missionary 
and the philanthropist. They who have vis- 
ited these haunts of despair and wretchedness 
have learned that they must touch gently 
the shattered harp of the human soul, if 
they would string it again to divine music ; 
that they must encourage self-respect, and 
hope, and sense of character, or the bonds 
of death can never be broken. 

Let us examine the gospel of Christ, and 
see on what principles its appeals are con- 
structed. Of what nature are those motives 
which have melted our hearts and renewed 
our wills 1 Are they not appeals to the 
most generous and noble instincts of our na- 
ture 1 Are we not told of One fairer than 
the sons of men, — One reigning in immor- 
tal glory, who loved us so that he could 
bear pain, and want, and shame, and death 
itself, for our sake 1 

When Christ speaks to the soul, does he 
crush one of its nobler faculties ? Does he 
taunt us with our degradation, our selfish- 
ness, our narrowness of "view, and feeble- 
ness of intellect, compared with his own 1 
Is it not true that he not only saves us 
from our sins, but saves us in a way most 
considerate, most tender, most regardful of 
our feelings and sufferings 1 Does not the 
Bible tell us that, in order to fulfil his office 
of Redeemer the more perfectly, he took 
upon him the condition of humanity, and 
endured the pains, and wants, and tempta- 
tions of a mortal existence, that he might 
be to us a sympathizing, appreciating friend, 
" touched with the feeling of our infirm- 
ities," and cheering us gently on in the 
hard path of returning virtue ? 

0, when shall we, who have received so 
much of Jesus Christ, learn to repay it in 
acts of kindness to our poor brethren? 
When shall we be Christ-like, and not man- 
like, in our efforts to reclaim the fallen and 
wandering; 1 



54 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE QUAKERS. 

The writer's sketch of the character of 
this people has been drawn from personal 
observation. There are several settlements 
of these people in Ohio, and the manner of 
living, the tone of sentiment, and the habits 
of life, as represented in her book, are not at 
all exasperated. 

ITT 

These settlements have always been 
refuges for the oppressed and outlawed 
slave. The character of Rachel Halliday 
was a real one, but she has passed away 
to her reward. Simeon Halliday, calmly 
risking fine and imprisonment for his love 
to God and man, has had in this country 
many counterparts among the sect. 

The writer had in mind, at the time of 
writing, the scenes in the trial of Thomas 
Garret, of Wilmington, Delaware, for the 
crime of hiring a hack to convey a mother 
and four children from Newcastle jail to 
Wilmington, a distance of fice miles. 

The writer has received the facts in this 
case in a letter from John Garret himself, 
from which some extracts will be made : 



{ Wilmington, Delaware, 
} 1st month 18/A, 1853. 
My Dear Friexd, 

Harriet Beecher Stowe : I have this day received 
a request from Charles K. Whipple, of Boston, to 
furnish thee with a statement, authentic and 
circumstantial, of the trouble and losses which 
have been brought upon myself and others of my 
friends from the aid we had rendered to fugitive 
slaves, in order, if thought of sufficient importance, 
to be published in a work thee is now preparing 
for the press. 

I will now endeavor to give thee a statement of 
what John Hunn and myself suffered by aiding a 
family of slaves, a few years since. I will give 
the facts as they occurred, and thee may condense 
and publish so much as thee may think useful in 
thy work, and no more : 

"In the 12th month, year 184G, a family, con- 
sisting of Samuel Hawkins, a freeman, his wife 
Emeline, and six children, who were afterwards 
proved slaves, stopped at the house of a friend 
named John Hunn, near Middle town, in this state, 
in the evening about sunset, to procure food and 
lodging fur the night. They were seen by some 
of Ilium's pro-slavery neighbors, who soon came 
with a constable, ami had them taken before a 
magistrate. Ilunn had left the slaves in his 
kitchen when he went to the village of Middle- 
town, half a mile distant. When the officer 
came with a warrant for them, ho met Hmm at 
tin- kitchen door, and asked for the blacks ; Hunn, 
with truth, said he did not know where they 
were. Hunn r s wife, thinking they would be 
safer, had sent them up stairs during his absence, 
whir.- they were found. Hunn made no resistance, 
and they were taken before the magistrate, and 
from his office direct to Newcastle jail, where fchey 
arrived about one o'clock on 7th day morning. 



The sheriff and his daughter, being kind, hu- 
mane people, inquired of Hawkins and wife the 
facts of their case ; and his daughter wrote to a 
lady here, to request me to go to Newcastle and 
inquire into the case, as her father and self really 
believed they were most of them, if not all, en- 
titled to their freedom. Next morning I went to 
Newcastle : had the family of colored people 
brought into the parlor, and the sheriff and myself 
came to the conclusion that the parents and four 
youngest children were by law entitled to their 
freedom. I prevailed on the sheriff to show me 
the commitment of the magistrate, which I found 
was defective, and not in due form according to 
law. I procured a copy and handed it to a lawyer. 
He pronounced the commitment irregular, and 
agreed to go next morning to Newcastle and have 
the whole family taken before Judge Booth, Chief 
Justice of the state, by habeas corpus, when the fol- 
lowing admission was made by Samuel Hawkins 
and wife : They admitted that the two eldest boys 
were held by one Charles Glaudin, of Queen Anne 
County, Maryland, as slaves ; that after the birth 
of these two children, Elizabeth Turner, also of 
Queen Anne, the mistress of their mother, had set 
her free, and permitted her to go and live with her 
husband, near twenty miles from her residence, 
after which the four youngest children were born ; 
that her mistress during all that time, eleven or 
twelve years, had never contributed one dollar to 
their support, or come to see them. After examining 
the commitment in their case, and consulting with 
my attorney, the judge set the whole family at 
liberty. The day was wet and cold ; one of the 
children, three years old, was a cripple from white 
swelling, and could not walk a step ; another, eleven 
months old, at the breast ; and the parents being 
desirous of getting to Wilmington, five miles dis- 
tant, I asked the judge if there would be any risk 
or impropriety in my hiring a conveyance for the 
mother and four young children to Wilmington. 
His reply, in the presence of the sheriff and my at- 
torney, was there would not be any. I then re- 
quested the sheriff to procure a hack to take them 
over to Wilmington." 



The whole family escaped. John Hunn 
and John Garret were brought up to trial 
for having practically fulfilled those words 
of Christ which read, " I was a stranger 
and ye took me in, I was sick and in prison 
and ye came unto me." For John Ilunn's 
part of this crime, he was fined two thousand 
five hundred dollars, and John Garret was 
fined five thousand four hundred. Three 
thousand five hundred of this was the fine 
for hiring a hack for them, and one thousand 
nine hundred was assessed on him as the 
value of the slaves ! Our European friends 
will infer from this that it costs something 
to obey Christ in America, as well as in 
Europe. 

After John Garret's trial was over, and 
this heavy judgment had been given against 
him, he calmly ruse in the court-room, and 
requested leave to address a few words to 
the court and audience. 

Leave being granted, he spoke as follows : 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



55 



I have a few words which I wish to address to 
the court, jury and prosecutors, in the several 
suits that have been brought against me during 
the sittings of this court, in order to determine 
the amount of penalty I must pay for doing 
what my feelings prompted me to do as a lawful 
and meritorious act ; a simple act of humanity and 
justice, as I believed, to eight of that oppressed 
race, the people of color, whom I found in the 
Newcastle jail, in the 12th month, 1845. I will 
now endeavor to state the facts of those cases, for 
your consideration and reflection after you return 
home to your families and friends. You will then 
have time to ponder on what has transpired here 
since the sitting of this court, and I believe that 
your verdict will then be unanimous, that the law 
of the United States, as explained by our vener- 
able judge, when compared with the act committed 
by me, was cruel and oppressive, and needs re- 
modelling. 

Here follows a very brief and clear state- 
ment of the facts in the case, of which the 
reader is already apprized. 

After showing conclusively that he had 
no reason to suppose the family to be slaves, 
and that they had all been discharged by 
the judge, he nobly adds the following 
words : 

Had I believed every one of them to be slaves, 
I should have done the same thing. I should have 
done violence to my convictions of duty, had I 
not made use of all the lawful means in my 
power to liberate those people, and assist them to 
become men and women, rather than leave them 
in the condition of chattels personal. 

I am called an Abolitionist ; once a name of re- 
proach, but one I have ever been proud to be con- 
sidered worthy of being called. For the last 
twenty-five years I have been engaged in the 
cause of this despised and much-injured race, and 
consider their cause worth suffering for ; but, 
owing to a multiplicity of other engagements, I 
could not devote so much of my time and mind to 
their cause as I otherwise should have done. 

The impositions and persecutions practised on 
those unoffending and innocent brethren are ex- 
treme beyond endurance. I am now placed in a 
situation in which I have not so much to claim my 
attention as formerly ; and I now pledge myself, in 
the presence of this assembly, to use all lawful 
and honorable means to lessen the burdens of this 
oppressed people, and endeavor, according to ability 
furnished, to burst their chains asunder, and set 
them free ; not relaxing my efforts on their behalf 
while blessed with health, and a slave remains to 
tread the soil of the state of my adoption, — 
Delaware. 

After mature reflection, I can assure this as- 
sembly it is my opinion at this time that the ver- 
dicts you have given the prosecutors against John 
Hunn and myself, within the past few days, will 
have a tendency to raise a spirit of inquiry 
throughout the length and breadth of the land, 
respecting this monster evil (slavery), in many 
minds that have not heretofore investigated the 
subject. The reports of those trials will be pub- 
lished by editors from Maine to Texas and the far 
West ; and what must be the effect produced ? 
It will, no doubt, add hundreds, perhaps thou- 
sands, to the present large and rapidly increasing 



army of abolitionists. The injury is great to us 
who are the immediate sufferers by your verdict ; 
but I believe the verdicts you have given against 
us within the last few days will have a powerful 
effect in bringing about the abolition of slavery in 
this country, this land of boasted freedom, where 
not only the slave is fettered at the South by his 
lordly master, but the white man at the North is 
bound as in chains to do the bidding of his South- 
ern masters. 

In his letter to the writer John Garret 
adds, that after this speech a young man who 
had served as juryman came across the room, 
and taking him by the hand, said : 

<; Old gentleman, I believe every state- 
ment that you have made. I came from home 
prej udiced against you, and I now acknowl- 
edge that I have helped to do you injus- 
tice." 

Thus calmly and simply did this Quaker 
confess Christ before men, according as it is 
written of them of old, — " He esteemed the 
reproach of Christ greater riches than all 
the treasures of Egypt." 

Christ has said, " Whosoever shall be 
ashamed of me and my words, of him shall 
the Son of Man be ashamed." In our days 
it is not customary to be ashamed of Christ 
personally, but of his words many are 
ashamed. But when they meet Him in 
judgment they will have cause to remember 
them ; for heaven and earth shall pass away, 
but His word shall not pass away. 



Another case of the same kind is of a 
more affecting character. 

Richard Dillingham was the son of a 
respectable Quaker family in Morrow 
County, Ohio. His pious mother brought 
him up in the full belief of the doctrine of 
St. John, that the love of God and the love 
of man are inseparable. He was diligently 
taught in such theological notions as are 
implied in such passages as these: " Hereby 
perceive we the love of God, because he 
laid down his life for us ; and we ought also 
to lay down our lives for the brethren. — 
But whoso hath this world's goods andseeth 
his brother have need and shutteth up his 
bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth 
the love of God in him ? — My little children, 
let us not love in word and in tongue, but 
in deed and in truth." 

In accordance with these precepts, Richard 
Dillingham, in early manhood, was found in 
Cincinnati teaching the colored people, and 
visiting in the prisons and doing what in him 
lay to " love in deed and in truth." 

Some unfortunate families among the 
colored people had dear friends who were 



56 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



slaves in Nashville, Tennessee. Richard 
was so interested in their story, that when 
he went into Tennessee he was actually 
taken up and caught in the very fact of" 
helping certain poor people to escape to 
their friends. 

He was seized and thrown into prison. 
In the language of this world he was im- 
prisoned as a "negro-stealer." His own 
account is given in the following letter to 
his parents : 

Nashville Jail, 12th mo. 15th, 1849. 
Dear Parents : I presume you have heard of my 
arrest and imprisonment in the Nashville jail, 
under a charge of aiding in an attempted escape 
of slaves from the city of Nashville, on the 5th 
inst. I was arrested by M. D. Maddox (district 
constable), aided by Frederick Marshal, watch- 
man at the Nashville Inn, and the bridge-keeper, 
at the bridge across the Cumberland river. When 
tbey arrested me, I had rode up to the bridge on 
horseback and paid the toll for myself and for the 
hack to pass over, in which three colored persons, 
who were said to be slaves, were found by the 
men who arrested me. The driver of the hack 
(who is a free colored man of this city), and the 
persons in the hack, were also arrested ; and after 
being taken to the Nashville Inn and searched, we 
were all taken to jail. My arrest took place about 
eleven o'clock at night. 

In another letter he says : 

At the bridge, Maddox said tome, " You are just 
the man we wanted. We will make an example of 
you." As soon as we were safe in the bar-room of 
the inn, Maddox took a candle and looked me in the 
face, to see if he could recognize my countenance : 
and looking intently at me a few moments, he said, 
" Well, you are too good-looking a young man to 
be engaged in such an affair as this." The by- 
standers asked me several questions, to which I 
replied that under the present circumstances I 
would rather be excused from answering any ques- 
tions relating to my case ; upon which they 
desisted from further inquiry. Some threats and 
malicious wishes were uttered against me by the 
ruffian part of the assembly, being about twenty- 
five persons. I was put in a cell which had six 
persons in it, and I can assure thee that they were 
very far from being agreeable companions to me, 
although they were kind. But thou knows that I 
do not relish cursing and swearing, and worst of 
all loathsome and obscene blasphemy ; and of 
such was most of the conversation of my prison 
mates when I was first put in here. The jailers 
are kind enough to me, but the jail is so con- 
structed that it cannot be warmed, and we have 
to either warm ourselves by walking in our cell, 
which is twelve by fifteen feet, or by lying in bed. 
I went out to my trial on the 16th of last month, 
and put it off till the next term of the court, 
which will be commenced on the second of next 
4th mouth.' I put it off on the ground of excite- 
ment. 

Dear brother, I have no hopes of getting clear 
of being convicted ami sente d to the peniten- 
tiary ; but do not think that I am without comfort 
in my afflictions, for I assure thee that I have 
many reflections that give me sweet consolation in 
the midst of my grief. 1 have a clear conscience 



before my God, which is my greatest comfort and 
support through all my troubles and afflictions. 
An approving conscience none can know but those 
who enjoy it. It nerves us in the hour of trial to 
bear our sufferings with fortitude, and even with 
cheerfulness. The greatest affliction I have is the 
reflection of the sorrow and anxiety my friends will 
have to endure on my account. But I can assure 
thee, brother, that with the exception of this reflec- 
tion, I am far, very far, from being one of the most 
miserable of men. Nay, to the contrary, I am not 
terrified at the prospect before me, though I am 
grieved about it ; but all have enough to grieve 
about in this unfriendly wilderness of sin and woe. 
My hopes are not fixed in this world, and there- 
fore I have a source of consolation that will never 
fail me, so long as I slight not the offers of mercy, 
comfort and peace, which my blessed Saviour con- 
stantly privileges me with. 

One source of almost constant annoyance to my 
feelings is the profanity and vulgarity, and the 
bad, disagreeable temper, of two or three fellow- 
prisoners of my cell. They show me considerable 
kindness and respect ; but they cannot do other- 
wise, when treated with the civility and kindness 
with which I treat them. If it be my fate to go 
to the penitentiary for eight or ten years, I can, I 
believe, meet my doom without shedding a tear. 
I have not yet shed a tear, though there may be 
many in store. My bail-bonds were set at seven 
thousand dollars. If I should be bailed out, 
I should return to my trial, unless my security 
were rich, and did not wish me to return ; for 1 
am Richard yet, although I am in the prison of my 
enemy, and will not flinch from what I believe to 
be right and honorable. These are the principles 
which, in carrying out, have lodged me here ; for 
there was a time, at my arrest, that I might have, 
in all probability, escaped the police, but it would 
have subjected those who were arrested with 
me to punishment, perhaps even to death, in 
order to find out who I wa3, and if they had not 
told more than they could have done in truth, they 
would probably have been punished without 
mercy ; and I am determined no one shall suffer 
for me. I am now a prisoner, but those who were 
arrested with me are all at liberty, and I believe 
without whipping. I now stand alone before the 
Commonwealth of Tennessee to answer for the 
affair. Tell my friends I am in the midst of con- 
solation here. 

Richard was engaged to a young lady of 
amiable disposition and fine mental endow- 
ments. 

To her he thus writes : 

0, dearest! Canst thou upbraid mo! canst 
thou call it crime? wouldst thou call it crime, or 
couldst thou upbraid me, for rescuing, or attempt- 
ing to rescue, thy father, mother, or l)rother and 
sister, or even friends, from a captivity among a 
cruel race of oppressors ? 0, couldst thou only sec 
what I have seen, and hear what I have heard, of 
the sad, vexatious, degrading, and soul-trying 
situation of as noble minds as ever the Anglo- 
Saxon race were possessed of, mourning in vain 
for that universal heaven-born boon of freedom, 
which an all-wise and beneficent Creator has 
designed for all, thou couldst not censure, but 
wouldst deeply sympathize witli me ! Take all 
these tilings into consideration, and the thousands 
of poor mortals who are dragging out far more 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



57 



miserable lives than mine will be, even at ten 
years in the penitentiary, and thou wilt not look 
upon my fate with so much horror as thou would 
at first thought. 

In another letter he adds : 

I have happy hours here, and I should not be 
miserable if I could only know you were not sor- 
rowing for me at home. It would give me^ mpre 
satisfaction to hear that you were not grieving 
about me than anything else. 

The nearer I live to the principle of the com- 
mandment, " Love thy neighbor as thyself," the 
more enjoyment I have of this life. None can 
know the enjoyments that flow from feelings of 
good will towards our fellow-beings, both friends 
and enemies, but those who cultivate them. Even 
in my prison-cell I may be happy, if I will. For 
the Christian's consolation cannot be shut out from 
him by enemies or iron gates. 

In another letter to the lady before al- 
luded to he says : 

By what I am able to learn, I believe thy 
"Richard" has not fallen altogether unlamented ; 
and the satisfaction it gives me is sufficient to 
make my prison life more pleasant and desirable 
than even a life of liberty without the esteem and 
respect of my friends. But it gives bitterness to 
the cup of my afflictions to think that my dear 
friends and relatives have to suffer such grief and 
sorrow for me. 

Though persecution ever so severe be my lot, 
yet I will not allow my indignation ever to ripen 
into revenge even against my bitterest enemies ; 
for there will be a time when all things must be 
revealed before Him who has said " Vengeance is 
mine, I will repay." Yes, my heart shall ever 
glow with love for my poor fellow-mortals, who 
are hastening rapidly on to their final destination 
— the awful tomb and the solemn judgment. 

Perhaps it will give thee some consolation for 
me to tell thee that I believe there is a consider- 
able sympathy existing in the minds of some of 
the better portion of the citizens here, which may 
be of some benefit to me. But all that can be 
done in my behalf will still leave my case a sad 
one. Think not, however, that it is all loss to 
me, for by my calamity I have learned many good 
and useful lessons, which I hope may yet prove 
both temporal and spiritual blessings to me. 

" Behind a frowning providence 
He hides a smiling face." 

Therefore I hope thou and my dear distressed 
parents will be somewhat comforted about me, for 
I know you regard my spiritual welfare far more 
than anything else. 

In his next letter to the same friend he 



Since I wrote my last, I have had a severe 
moral conflict, in which 1 believe the right con- 
quered, and has completely gained the ascendency. 
The matter was this : A man with whom I have 
become acquainted since my imprisonment offered 
to bail me out and let me stay away from my 
trial, and pay the bail-bonds for me, and was very 



anxious to do it. [Here he mentions that the 
funds held by this individual had been placed in 
his hands by a person who obtained them by dis- 
honest means.] But having learned the above 
facts, which he in confidence made known to me, 
I declined accepting his offer, giving him my rea- 
sons in full. The matter rests with him, my 
attornej'S and myself. My attorneys do not know 
who he is, but, with his permission, I in confi- 
dence informed them of the nature of the case, 
after I came to a conclusion upon the subject, and 
had .determined not to accept the offer ; which 
was approved by them. I also had an offer of 
iron saws and files and other tools by which I 
could break jail ; but I refused them also, as I do 
not wish to pursue any such underhanded course to 
extricate myself from my present difficulties ; for 
when I leave Tennessee — if I ever do — I am 
determined to leave it a free man. Thou need not 
fear that I shall ever stoop to dishonorable means 
to avoid my severe impending fate. When I meet 
thee again I want to meet thee with a clear con- 
science, and a character unspotted by disgrace. 

In another place he says, in view of his 
nearly approaching trial : 

dear parents ! The principles of love for my 
fellow-beings which you have instilled into my 
mind are some of the greatest consolations I have 
in my imprisonment, and they give me resignation 
to bear whatever may be inflicted upon me without 
feeling any malice or bitterness toward my vigi- 
lant prosecutors. If they show me mercy, it will 
be accepted by me with gratitude ; but if they do 
not, I will endeavor to bear whatever they may 
inflict with Christian fortitude and resignation, 
and try not to murmur at my lot ; but it is hard 
to obey the commandment, " Love your enemies." 

The day of his trial at length came. 

His youth, his engaging manners, frank 
address, and invariable gentleness to all who 
approached him, had won many friends, and 
the trial excited much interest. 

His mother and her brother, Asa Williams, went 
a distance of seven hundred and fifty miles to at- 
tend his trial. They carried with them a certifi- 
cate of his character, drawn up by Dr. Brisbane, 
and numerously signed by his friends and ac- 
quaintances, and officially countersigned by civil 
officers. This was done at the suggestion of his 
counsel, and exhibited by them in court. When 
brought to the bar it is said that " his demeanor 
was calm, dignified and manly." His mother sat 
by his side. The prosecuting attorney waived his 
plea, and left the ground clear for Richard's 
counsel. Their defence was eloquent and pa- 
thetic. After they closed, Richard rose, and in 
a calm and dignified manner spoke extempora- 
neously as follows : 

" By the kind permission of the Court, for 
which I am sincerely thankful, I avail myself of 
the privilege of adding a few words to the remarks 
already made by my counsel. And although I 
stand, by my own confession, as a criminal in the 
eyes of your violated laws, yet I feel confident 
that I am addressing those who have hearts to 
feel ; and in meting out the punishment that I am 
about to suffer I hope you will be lenient, for it 
is a new situation in which I am placed. Never 



58 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



before, in the whole course of my life, have I been 
charged with a dishonest act. And from my 
childhood kind parents, whose names I deeply 
reverence, have instilled into my mind a desire to 
be virtuous and honorable ; and it has ever been 
my aim so to conduct myself as to merit the con- 
fidence and esteem of my fellow-men. But, gen- 
tlemen, I have violated your laws. This offence I 
did commit ; and I now stand before you, to my 
sorrow and regret, as a criminal. But I was 
prompted to it by feelings of humanity. It has 
been suspected, as I was informed, that I am 
leagued with a fraternity who are combined for 
the purpose of committing such offences as the 
one with which I am charged. But, gentlemen, 
the impression is false. I alone am guilty, I 
alone committed the offence, and I alone must 
suffer the penalty. My parents, my friends, my 
relatives, are as innocent of any participation in 
or knowledge of my offence as the babe unborn. 
My parents are still living, * though advanced in 
years, and, in the course of nature, a few more 
years will terminate their earthly existence. In 
their old age and infirmity they will need a stay 
and protection ; and if you can, consistently with 
your ideas of justice, make my term of imprison- 
ment a short one, you will receive the lasting 
gratitude of a son who reverences his parents, and 
the prayers and blessings of an aged father and 
mother who love their child." 

A great deal of sensation now appeared in the 
court-room, and most of the jury are said to have 
wept. They retired for a few moments, and 
returned a verdict for three years imprisonment 
in the penitentiary. 

The Nashville Daily Gazette of April 13, 1849, 
contains the following notice : 

" THE KIDNAPPING CASE. 

"Richard Dillingham, who was arrested on the 
5th day of December last, having in his possession 
three slaves whom he intended to convey with him 
to a free state, was arraigned yesterday and tried 
in the Criminal Court. The prisoner confessed his 
guilt, and made a short speech in palliation of his 
offence. He avowed that the act was undertaken 
by himself without instigation from any source, 
and he alone was responsible for the error into 
which his education had led him. He had, he 
said, no other motive than the good of the slaves, 
and did not expect to claim any advantage by 
freeing them. He was sentenced to three years 
impris mment in the penitentiary, the least time 
the law allows for the offence committed. Mr. 
Dillingham is a Quaker from Ohio, and has been 
B teacher in that state. lie belongs to a respect- 
able family, and lie is not without the sympathy 
of those who attended the trial. It was a fool- 
hardy enterprise in which he embarked, and 
dearly has he paid for his rashness.-" 

His mother, before leaving Nashville, visited 
the governor, and had an interview with him in 
regard to pardoning her Bon. He gave her some 
encouragement, but thought she had better post- 
pone her petition for the present. After the lapse 
of several months, she wrote to him about it; but 
he seemed to have changed his mind, as the fol- 
lowing letter will show : 

"Nashville, August 29, 1849. 

" Dear Madam : Your letter of the 6th of the 

7th mo. was received, and would have been noticed 



earlier but for my absence from home. Your 
solicitude for your son is natural, and it would be 
gratifying to be able to reward it by releasing him, 
if it were in my power. But the offence for 
which he is suffering was clearly made out, and 
its tendency here is very hurtful to our rights, 
and our peace as a people. He is doomed to the 
shortest period known to our statute. And, at all 
events, I could not interfere with his case for 
some time to come ; and, to be frank with you, I do 
not see how his time can be lessened at all. But 



It. D.'s father survived him only u few months. 



my term of office will expire soon, and the gov- 
ernor elect, Gen. William Trousdale, will take my 
place. To him you will make any future appeal. 
" Y^ours, &c. N. L. Brown.''' 

The warden of the penitentiary, John Mcin- 
tosh, was much prejudiced against him. He 
thought the sentence was too light, and, being of 
a stern bearing, Richard had not much to expect 
from his kindness. But the same sterling integrity 
and ingenuousness which had ever, under all cir- 
cumstances, marked his conduct, soon wrought a 
change in the minds of his keepers, and of his 
enemies generally. He became a favorite with 
Mcintosh, and some of the guard. According to 
the rules of the prison, he was not allowed to 
write oftener than once in three months, and what 
he wrote had, of course, to be inspected by the 
warden. 

He was at first put to sawing and scrub- 
bing rock ; but, as the delicacy of his frame 
unfitted him for such labors, and the spotless 
sanctity of his life won the reverence of his 
jailers, he was soon promoted to be steward 
of the prison hospital. In a letter to a 
friend he thus announces this change in his 
situation : 

I suppose thou art, ere this time, informed of 
the change in my situation, having been placed 
in the hospital of the penitentiary as steward. . . 
I feel but poorly qualified to fill the situation they 
have assigned me, but will try to do the best I 

can I enjoy the comforts of a good fire 

and a warm room, and am allowed to sit up 
evenings and read, which I prize as a great priv- 
ilege I have now been here nearly nine 

months, and have twenty-seven more to stay. It 
seems to me a long time in prospect. I try to be 
as patient as I can, but sometimes I get low- 
spirited. I throw off the thoughts of home and 
friends as much as possible ; for, when indulged 
in, they only increase my melancholy feelings. 
And what wounds my feelings most is the reflec- 
tion of what you all "suffer of grief and anxiety 
for me. Cease to grieve for me, for I am un- 
worthv of it; and it only causes pain for you, 

without availing aught for me As ever, 

thine in the bonds of affection, R. D. 

He had been in prison little more than a 
year when the cholera invaded Nashville, 
and broke out among the inmates ; Richard 
was up day and night in attendance on 
the sick, his disinterested and sympathetic 
nature leading him to labors to which his 
delicate constitution, impaired by confine- 
ment, was altogether inadequate. 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



59 



" Beside the bed where parting life was laid,^ 
And sorrow, grief and pain, by turns dismayed, 
The youthful champion stood : at his control 
Despair and anguish fled the trembling soul, 
Comfort came down the dying wretch to raise, 
And his last faltering accents whispered praise." 

Worn with these labors, the gentle, patient 
lover of God and of his brother, sank at last 
overwearied, and passed peacefully away 
to a world where all are lovely and loving. 

Though his correspondence with her he 
most loved was interrupted, from his unwil- 
lingness to subject his letters to the sur- 
veillance of the warden, yet a note reached 
her, conveyed through the hands of a pris- 
oner whose time was out. In this letter, 
the last which any earthly friend ever re- 
ceived, he says : 

I ofttiraes, yea, all times, think of thee ; — if I 
did not, I should cease to exist. 

What must that system be which makes 
it necessary to imprison with convicted 
felons a man like this, because he loves his 
brother man " not wisely but too well " 1 

On his death Whittier wrote the follow- 
ing : 

" Si crucem libenter portes, te portabit." — Imit. Christ. 

" The Cross, if freely borne, shall bo 
No burthen, but support, to thee." 
So, moved of old time for our sake, 
The holy man of Kempen spake. 

Thou brave and true one, upon whom 
"Was laid the Cross of Martyrdom, 
How didst thou, in thy faithful youth, 
Bear witness to this blessed truth ! 

Thy cross of suffering and of shame 
A staff within thy hands became ; — 
In paths, where Faith alone could see 
The Master's steps, upholding thee. 

Thine was the seed-time : God alone 
Beholds the end of what is sown ; 
Beyond our vision, weak and dim, 
The harvest-time is hid with Him. 

Yet, unforgotten where it lies, 
That seed of generous sacrifice, 
Though seeming on the desert cast, 
Shall rise with bloom and fruit at last. 

J. G. Whittier. 
Amcsbury, Second mo. \§th, 1832. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE SPIRIT OF ST. CLARE. 

The general tone of the press and of the 
community in the slave states, so far as it 
has been made known at the North, has 
been loudly condemnatory of the representa- 
tions of " Uncle Tom's Cabin." Still, it 
would be unjust to the character of the South 
to refuse to acknowledge that she has many 



sons with candor enough to perceive, and 
courage enough to avow, the evils of her 
"peculiar institutions." The manly inde- 
pendence exhibited by these men, in com- 
munities where popular sentiment rules des- 
potically, either by law or in spite of law, 
should be duly honored. The sympathy 
of such minds as these is a hi";h encourage- 
ment to philanthropic effort. 

The author inserts a few testimonials 
from Southern men, not without some pride 
in being thus kindly judged by those who 
might have been naturally expected to read 
her book with prejudice against it. 

The Jefferson Inquirer, published at 
Jefferson City, Missouri, Oct. 23, 1852, 
contains the following communication : 

UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 

I have lately read this celebrated book, which, 
perhaps, has gone through more editions, and 
been sold in greater numbers, than any work from 
the American press, in the same length of time. 
It is a work of high literary finish, and its sev- 
eral characters are drawn with great power and 
truthfulness, although, like the characters inmost 
novels and works of fiction, in some instances too 
highly colored. There is no attack on slave-hold- 
ers as such, but, on the contrary, many of them 
are represented as highly noble, generous, humane 
and benevolent. Nor is there any attack upon 
them as a class. It sets forth many of the evils 
of slavery, as an institution established by law, but 
without charging these evils on those who hold 
the slaves, and seems fully to appreciate the diffi- 
culties in finding a remedy. Its effect upon the 
slave-holder is to make him a kinder and better 
master ; to which none can object. This is said 
without any intention to endorse everything con- 
tained in the book, or, indeed, in any novel,' or 
work of fiction. But, if I mistake not, there are 
few, excepting those who are greatly prejudiced, 
that will rise from a perusal of the "book without 
being a truer and better Christian, and a more 
humane and benevolent man. As a slave-holder, 
I do not feel the least aggrieved. How Mrs. 
Stowe, the authoress, has obtained her extremely 
accurate knowledge of the negroes, their charac- 
ter, dialect, habits, &c, is beyond my comprehen- 
sion, as she never resided — as appears from the 
preface — in a slave state, or among slaves or 
negroes. But they are certainly admirably delin- 
eated. The book is highly interesting anil amus- 
ing, and will afford a rich treat to its reader. 

Thomas Jefferson. 

The opinion of the editor himself is given 
in these words : 

UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 

Well, like a good portion of " the world and 
the rest of mankind," we have read the book of 
Mrs. Stowe bearing the above title. 

From numerous statements, newspaper para- 
graphs and rumors, we supposed the book was all 
that fanaticism and heresy could invent, and were 
therefore greatly prejudiced against it. But, on 
reading it, we cannot refrain from saying that it 
is a work of more than ordinary moral worth, and 



GO 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



is entitled to consideration. We do not regard it 
as "a corruption of moral sentiment," and a 
gross " libel on a portion of our people." The 
authoress seems disposed to treat the subject 
fairly, though, in some particulars, the scenes are 
too highly colored, and too strongly drawn from 
the imagination. The book, however, may lead 
its readers at a distance to misapprehend some of 
the general and better features of " Southern life 
as it is " (which, by the way, we, as an individ- 
ual, prefer to Northern life) ; yet it is a perfect 
mirror of several classes of people " we have_ in 
our mind's eye, who are not free from all the ills 
flesh is heir to." It has been feared that the 
book would result in injury to the slave-holding 
interests of the country; but we apprehend no 
such thing, and hesitate not to recommend it to the 
perusal of our friends and the public generally. 

Mrs. Stowe has exhibited a knowledge of many 
peculiarities of Southern society which is really 
wonderful, when we consider that she is a North- 
ern lady by birth and residence. 

We hope, then, before our friends form any 
harsh opinions of the merits of "UncleTom's 
Cabin," and make up any judgment against us 
for pronouncing in its favor (barring some objec- 
tions to it), that they will give it a careful 
perusal ; and, in so speaking, we may say that 
we yield to no man in his devotion to Southern 
rights and interests. 

The editor of the St. Louis (Missouri) 
Battery pronounces the following judgment: 

We took up this work, a few evenings since, 
with just such prejudices against it as we pre- 
sume many others have commenced reading it. 
We have been so much in contact with ultra abo- 
litionists, — have had so much evidence that their 
benevolence was much more hatred for the master 
than love for the slave, accompanied with a pro- 
found ignorance of the circumstances surrounding 
both, and a most consummate, supreme disgust 
for the whole negro race, — that we had about 
concluded that anything but rant and nonsense 
was out of the question from a Northern writer 
upon the subject of slavery. 

Mrs. Stowe, in these delineations of life among 
the lowly, has convinced us to the contrary. _ 

She brings to the discussion of her subject a 
perfectly cool, calculating judgment, a wide, all- 
comprehending intellectual vision, and a deep, 
warm, sea-like woman's soul, over all of which is 
flung a perfect iris-like imagination, which makes 
the light of her pictures stronger and more beauti- 
ful, as their shades are darker and terror-striking. 
Wo do not wonder that the copy before us is of 
the seventieth thousand. And seventy thousand 
more will not supply the demand, or we mistake 
the appreciation of the American people of the 
real merits of literary productions. Mrs. Stowe 
has, in " Uncle Tom's Cabin," set up for herself 
a monument more enduring than marble. It will 
stand amid the wastes of slavery as the Memnon 
stands amid tin- sands of the African desert, tell- 
ing Loth the white man and the negro of the ap- 
proach of morning. The book is nut an abolition- 
ist work, in the offensive sense of the word. It 
is, as we have intimated, free from everything 
like fanaticism, no matter what amount of enthu- 
siasm vivifies every page, and runs like electricity 
along every thread of the story. It presents at 
one view the excellences and the evils of the sys- 



tem of slavery, and breathes the true spirit of 
Christian benevolence for the slave, and charity 
for the master. 

The next witness gives his testimony in a 
letter to the Neio York Evening Post: 

LIGHT IN THE SODTH. 

The subjoined communication comes to us post- 
marked New Orleans, June 19, 1852 : 

" I have just been reading ' Uncle Tom's Cabin, 
or, Scenes in Lowly Life,' by Mrs. Harriet Beecher 
Stowe. It found its way to me through the chan- 
nel of a young student, who purchased it at the 
North, to read on his homeward passage to New 
Orleans. He was entirely unacquainted with its 
character ; he was attracted by its title, suppos- 
ing it might amuse him while travelling. Through 
his family it was shown to me, as something that 
I would probably like. I looked at the author's 
name, and said/' 0, yes ; anything from that lady 
I will read :' otherwise I should have disregarded 
a work of fiction without such a title. 

" The remarks from persons present were, that 
it was a most amusing work, and the scenes most 
admirably drawn to life. I accepted the offer of 
a perusal of it, and brought it home with me. 
Although I have not read every sentence, I have 
looked over the whole of it, and I now wish to 
bear my testimony to its just delineation of the 
position that the slave occupies. Colorings in the 
work there are, but no colorings of the actual and 
real position of the slave worse than really exist. 
Whippings to death do occur ; I know it to be so. 
Painful separations of master and slave, under 
circumstances creditable to the master's feelings 
of humanity, do also occur. I know that, too. 
Many families, after having brought up their 
children in entire dependence on slaves to do 
everything for them, and after having been in- 
dulged in elegances and luxuries, have exhausted 
all their means ; and the black people only being 
left, whom they must sell, for further support. 
Running away, everybody knows, is the worst 
crime a slave can commit, in the eyes of his mas- 
ter, except it be a humane master ; and from such 
few slaves care to run away. 

" I am a slave-holder myself. I have long been 
dissatisfied with the system ; particularly since I 
have made the Bible my criterion for judging of 
it. I am convinced, from what I read there 
shivery is not in accordance with what God 
delights to honor in his creatures. I am alto- 
gether opposed to the system ; and I intend always 
to use whatever influence I may have against it. 
I feel very bold in speaking against it, though 
living in the midst of it, because 1 am backed by 
a powerful arm, that can overturn and overrule 
the strongest efforts that the determined friends 
of slavery are now making Cor its continuance. 

" I sincerely hope that more of Mrs. Stowes 
may be found," to show up tin' reality of slavery. 
It needs master minds to show it as it is, that it 
may rest upon its own merits. 

"Like Mrs. Stowe, I feel that, since so many 
and good people, too, at the North, have quietly 
consented to leave the slave to his fiite, by acqui- 
escing in and approving the late measures of gov- 
ernment, those who do feel differently should 
bestir themselves. Christian effort must doth'- 
work ; and soon it would be done, if Christians 
would unite, not to destroy the Union states, but 
honestly to speak out, and speak freely, against 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



Gl 



that they know is wrong. They are not aware 
what countenance they give to slave-holders to 
hold on to their prey. Troubled consciences can 
be easily quieted by the sympathies of pious peo- 
ple, particularly when interest and inclination 
come in as aids. 

"I am told there is to be a reply made to 
' Uncle Tom's Cabin,' entitled ' Uncle Tom's 
Cabin as It Is.' I am glad of it. Investigation 
is what is wanted. 

'• You will wonder why this communication is 
made to you by an unknown. It is simply made 
to encourage your heart, and strengthen your 
determination to persevere, and do all you can to 
put the emancipation of the slave in progress. 
Who I am you will never know ; nor do I wish 
you to know," nor any one else. I am a 

" Republican." 

The following facts make the fiction of 
"Uncle Tom's Cabin" appear tame in the 
comparison. They are from the New York 
Evangelist. 

UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 

Mr. Editor : I see in your paper that some per- 
sons deny the statements of Mrs. Stowe. I have 
read her book, every word of it. I was born in 
East Tennessee, near Knoxville, and, we thought, 
in an enlightened part of the Union, much favored 
in our social, political and religious privileges, 
&c. &c. Well, I think about the year 1829, or, 
perhaps, '28, a good old German Methodist owned 
a black man named Robin, a Methodist preacher, 
and the manager of farm, distillery, &c, sales- 
man and financier. This good old German Meth- 
odist had a son named Willey, a schoolmate of 
mine, and, as times were, a first-rate fellow. The 
old man also owned a keen, bright-eyed mulatto 
girl; and Willey — the naughty boy! — became 
enamored of the poor girl. The result was soon 
discovered ; and our good German Methodist told 
his brother Robin to flog the girl for her wicked- 
ness. Brother Robin said he could not and would 
not perform such an act of cruelty as to flog the 
girl for what she could not help ; and for that act 
of disobedience old Robin was flogged by the 
good old German brother, until he could not 
stand. He was carried to bed ; and, some three 
weeks thereafter, when my father left the state, 
he was still confined to his bed from the effects of 
that flogging. 

Again : in the fall of 183G I went South, for my 
health, stopped at a village in Mississippi, and 
obtained employment in the largest house in the 
county, as a book-keeper, with a firm from Louis- 
ville, Ky. A man Residing near the village — a 
bachelor, thirty years of age — became embar- 
rassed, and executed a mortgage to my employer 
on a fine, likely boy, weighing about two hundred 
pounds, — quick-witted, active, obedient, and re- 
markably faithful, trusty and honest ; so much so, 
that he was held up as an example. He had a wife 
that he loved. His owner cast his eyes upon her, 
and she became his paramour. His boy remon- 
strated with his master ; told him that he tried 
faithfully to perform his every duty ; that he was 
a good and faithful " nigger " to him ; and it was 
hard, after he had toiled hard all day, and till ten 
o'clock at night, for him to have his domestic 
relations broken up and interfered with. The 
white man denied the charge, and the wife also 



denied it. One night, about the first of Septem- 
ber, the boy came home earlier than usual, say 
about nine o'clock. It was a wet, dismal night ; 
he made a fire in his cabin, went to get his sup- 
per, and found ocular demonstration of the guilt 
of his master. He became enraged, as I suppose 
any man would, seized a butcher-knife, and cut 
his master's throat, stabbed his wife in twenty- 
seven places, came to the village, and knocked at 
the office-door. I told him to come in. He did 
so, and asked for my employer. I called him. 
The boy then told him that he had killed his mas- 
ter and his wife, and what for. My employer 
locked him up, and he, a doctor and myself, went 
out to the house of the old bachelor, and found 
him dead, and the boy's wife nearly so. She, 
however, lived. We (my employer and myself) 
returned to the village, watched the boy until 
about sunrise, left him locked up, and went to 
get our breakfasts, intending to take the boy to 
jail (as it was my employer's interest, if possible, 
to save the boy, having one thousand dollars at 
stake in him). But, whilst we were eating, some 
persons who had heard of the murder broke open 
the door, took the poor fellow, put a log chain 
round his neck, and started him for the woods, at 
the point of the bayonet, marching by where, we 
were eating, with a great deal of noise. My em- 
ployer, hearing it, ran out, and rescued the boy. 
The mob again broke in and took the boy, and 
marched him, as before stated, out of town. 

My employer then begged them not to disgrace 
their town in such a manner ; but to appoint a 
jury of twelve sober men, to decide what should be 
done. And twelve as sober men as could be found 
(I was not sober) said he must be hanged. They 
then tied a rope round his neck, and set him on 
an old horse. He made a speech to the mob, 
which I, at the time, thought if it had come from 
some senator, would have been received with 
rounds of applause ; and, withal, he was more 
calm than I am now, in writing this. And, after 
he had told all about the deed, and its cause, he 
then kicked the horse out from under him, and 
was launched into eternity. My employer has 
often remarked that he never saw anything more 
noble, in his whole life, than the conduct of that 
boy. 

Now, Mr. Editor, I have given you facts, and 
can give you names and dates. You can do what 
you think is best for the cause of humanity. I 
hope I have seen the evil of my former practices, 
and will endeavor to reform. 

Very respectfully, 

James L. Hill. 

Springfield, III, Sept. 17th, 1852. 

" The Opinion of a Southerner," given 
below, appeared in the National Era, pub- 
lished at Washington. This is an anti- 
slavery journal, but by its generous tone 
and eminent ability it commands the re- 
spect and patronage of many readers in the 
slave states : 

The following communication comes enclosed in 
an envelope from Louisiana. — Ed. Era. 

THE OPINION OF A S0UTI1ERNER. 

To the Editor of the National Era : 

I have just been reading, in the New York Ob- 
server of the 12th of August, an article from 



G2 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



the Southern Free Press, headed by an editorial one 
from the Observer, that has for its caption, " Pro- 
gress in the Right Quarter." 

The editor of the New York Observer says that 
the Southern Free Press has been an able and 
earnest defender of Southern institutions ; but 
that he now advocates the passage of a law to 
prohibit the separation of families, and recom- 
mends instruction to a portion of slaves that are 
most honest and faithful. The Observer further 
adds : "It was such language as this that was 
becoming common, before Northern fanaticism 
ruined the prospects of emancipation." It is not 
so ! Northern fanaticism, as he calls it, has done 
everything that has been done for bettering the 
condition of the slave. Every one who knows 
anything of slavery for the last thirty years will 
recollect that about that time since, the condition 
of the slave in Louisiana — for about Louisiana 
only do I speak, because about Louisiana only do I 
know — was as depressed and miserable as any 
of the accounts of the abolitionists that ever I 
have seen have made it. I say abolitionists ; I 
mean friends and advocates of freedom, in a fair 
and honorable way. If any doubt my asser- 
tion, let them seek for information. Let them get 
the black laws of Louisiana, and read them. Let 
them get facts from individuals of veracity, on 
whose statements they would rely. 

This wretched condition of slaves roused the 
friends of humanity, who, like men, and Christian 
men, came fearlessly forward, and told truths, in- 
dignantly expressing their abhorrence of their 
oppressors. Such measures, of course, brought 
forth strife, which caused the cries of humanity 
to sound louder and louder throughout the land. 
The friends of freedom gained the ascendency in 
the hearts of the people, and the slave-holders 
were brought to a stand. Some, through fear of 
consequences, lessened their cruelties, while others 
were made to think, that, perhaps, were not un- 
willing to do so when it wa3 urged upon them. 
Cruelties were not only refrained from, but the 
slave's comforts were increased. A retrograde 
treatment now was not practicable. Fears of re- 
bellion kept them to it. The slave had found 
friends, and they were watchful. It was, how- 
ever, soon discovered that too many privileges, 
too much leniency, and giving knowledge, would 
destroy the power to keep down the slave, and 
tend to weaken, if not destroy, the system. Ac- 
cordingly, stringent laws had to be passed, and a 
penalty attached to them. No one must teach, or 
cause to be taught, a slave, without incurring the 
penalty. The law is now in force. These neces- 
sary laws, as they are called, are all put down to 
the account of the friends of freedom — to their 
interference. I do suppose that they do justly 
belong to their interference ; for who that studies 
the history of the world's transactions does not 
know that in all contests with power the weak, 
until successful, will be dealt with more rigor- 
ously? Lose not Sight, however, of their former 
Condition. Law after law has since been passed 
to draw the curd tighter around the poor slave, 
and all attributed to the abolitionists. Well, 

anyhow, progress is being, made. Here comes 
out the Southern Press, and makes Borne honorable 

concessions. lie says : " The assaults upon slav- 
ery, made for the hist twenty years by the North, 
have increased the evils of it. The treatment of 
slaves has undoubtedly become a delicate and 
difficult question. The South has a great and 



moral conflict to wage ; and it is for her to put 
on the most invulnerable moral panoply.'" He then 
thinks the availability of slave property would 
not be injured by passing a law to prohibit the 
separation of slave families ; for he says, " Al- 
though cases sometimes occur which we observe 
are seized by these Northern fanatics as charac- 
teristic of the system," &c. Nonsense! there 
are no "cases sometimes" occurring — no such 
thing ! They are every day's occurrences, though 
there are families that form the exception, and 
many, I would hope, that would not do it. While 
I am writing I can call before me three men that 
were brought here by negro traders from Virginia, 
each having left six or seven children, with their 
wives, from whom they have never heard. One 
other died here, a short time since, who left the 
same number in Carolina, from whom he had 
never heard. 

I spent the summer of 1845 in Nashville. Dur- 
ing the month of September, six hundred slaves 
passed through that place, in four different gangs, 
for New Orleans — final destination, probably, 
Texas. A goodly proportion were women ; young 
women, of course ; many mothers must have left 
not only their children, but their babies. One 
gang only had a few children. I made some 
excursions to the different watering places around 
Nashville; and while at Robinson, or Tyree 
Springs, twenty miles from Nashville, on the 
borders of Kentucky and Tennessee, my hostess 
said to me, one day, " Yonder comes a gang 
of slaves, chained." I went to the road-side, 
and viewed them. For the better answering my 
purpose of observation, I stopped the white man 
in front, who was at his ease in a one-horse wagon, 
and asked him if those slaves were for sale. I 
counted them and observed their position. They 
were divided by three one-horse wagons, each 
containing a man-merchant, so arranged as to 
command the whole gang. Some were unchained ; 
sixty were chained, in two companies, thirty in 
each, the right hand of one to the left hand of the 
other opposite one, making fifteen each side of a 
large ox-chain, to which every hand was fastened, 
and necessarily compelled to hold up, — men and 
women promiscuously, and about in equal pro- 
portions, — all young people. No children here, 
except a few in a wagon behind, which were the 
only children in the four gangs. I said to a 
respectable mulatto woman in the house, " Is 
it true that the negro traders take mothers 
from their babies?" "Missis, it is true; for 
here, last week, such a girl [naming her], who 
lives about a mile olf, was taken after dinner, — 
knew nothing of it in the morning, — sold, put into 
the gang, and her baby wus given away to a 
neighbor. She was a stout young woman, and 
brought a good price." 

The annexation of Texas induced the spirited 
traffic that summer. Coming down home in a 
small boat, water low, a negro trader on board 
had forty-live men and women crammed into a little 
spot, some handcuffed. One respectable-looking 
man had left a wife and seven children in Nashville. 
Near Memphis the boat stopped at a plantation 
by previous arrangement, to take in thirty more. 
An hour's delay was the stipulated time with the 
captain of the boat. Thirty young men and 
women came down the bank of the Mississippi, 
looking wretchedness personified — just from the 
field ; in appearance dirty, disconsolate and op- 
pressed ; some with an old shawl under their arm ; 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



63 



a few had blankets ; some had nothing at all — 
looked as though they cared for nothing. I cal- 
culated, while looking at them coming down the 
bank, that I could hold in a bundle all that the 
whole of them had. The short notice that was 
given them, when about to leave, was in conse- 
quence of the fears entertained that they would 
slip one side. They all looked distressed, — 
leaving all that was dear to them behind, to be 
put under the hammer, for the property of the 
highest bidder. No children here ! The whole 
seventy-five were crammed into a little space on 
the boat, men and women all together. 

I am happy to see that morality is rearing its 
head with advocates for slavery, and that a " most 
invulnerable moral panoply 1 ' is thought to be 
necessary. I hope it may not prove to be like Mr. 
Clay's compromises. The Southern Press says : 
"As for caricatures of slavery in ' Uncle Tom's 
Cabin ' and the ' White Slave,' all founded in 
imaginary circumstances, &c, we consider them 
highly incendiary. He who undertakes to stir up 
strife between two individual neighbors, by de- 
traction, is justly regarded, by all men and all 
moral codes, as a criminal." Then he quotes the 
ninth commandment, and adds: "But to bear 
false witness against whole states, and millions 
of people, &c, would seem to be a crime as much 
deeper in turpitude as the mischief is greater and 
the provocation less." In the first place, I will 
put the Southern Press upon proof that Mrs. 
Harriet Beecher Stowe has told one falsehood. If 
she has told truth, it is, indeed, a powerful engine 
of " assault on slavery," such as these Northern 
fanatics have made for the " last twenty years." 
The number against whom she offends, in the 
editor's opinion, seems to increase the turpitude 
of her crime. That is good reasoning! I hope 
the editor will be brought to feel that wholesale 
wickedness is worse than single-handed, and is 
infinitely harder to reach, particularly if of long 
standing. It gathers boldness and strength when 
it is sanctioned by the authority of time, and 
aided by numbers that are interested in support- 
ing it. Such is slavery ; and Mrs. Harriet Beecher 
Stowe deserves the gratitude of " states and 
millions of people" for her talented work, in 
showing it up in its true light. She has advo- 
cated truth, justice and humanity, and they will 
back her efforts. Her work will be read by "states 
and millions of people ;" and when the Southern 
Press attempts to malign her, by bringing forward 
her own avowal , ' ' that the subject of slavery had 
been so painful to her, that she had abstained 
from conversing on it for several years," and that, 
in his opinion, "it accounts for the intensity of 
the venom of her book," his really .envenomed 
shafts will fall harmless at her feet ; for readers 
will judge for themselves, and be very apt to con- 
clude that more venom comes from the Southern 
Press than from her. She advocates what is right, 
and has a straight road, which " few get lost on ;" 
he advocates what is wrong, and has, consequently, 
to tack, concede, deny, slander, and all sorts of 
things. 

With all due deference to whatever of just 
principles the Southern Press may have advanced 
in favor of the slave, I am a poor judge of human 
nature if I mistake in saying that Mrs. Stowe has 
done much to draw from him those concessions ; 
and the putting forth of this "most invulnerable 
moral panoply," that has just come into his head 
as a bulwark of safety for slavery, owes its impe- 



tus to her, and other like efforts. I hope the 
Southern Press will not imitate the sjxnled child, 
who refused to eat his pie for spite. 

The " White Slave" I have not seen. I guess 
its character ; for I made a passage to New York, 
some fourteen or fifteen years since, in a packet- 
ship, with a young woman whose face was en- 
veloped in a profusion of light brown curls, and 
who sat at the table with the passengers all the 
way as a white woman. When at the quarantine, 
Staten Island, the captain received a letter, sent 
by express mail, from a person in New Orleans, 
claiming her as his slave, and threatening the cap- 
tain with the penalty of the existing law if she 
was not immediately returned. The streaming 
eyes of the poor, unfortunate girl told the truth, 
when the captain reluctantly broke it to her. She 
unhesitatingly confessed that she had run away, 
and that a friend had paid her passage. Proper 
measures were taken, and she was conveyed to a 
packet-ship that was at Sandy Hook, bound for 
New Orleans. 

"Uncle Tom's Cabin," I think, is a just de- 
lineation of slavery. The incidents are colored, but 
the position that the slave is made to hold is just. 
I did not read every page of it, my object being to 
ascertain what position the slave occupied. I 
could state a case of whipping to death that 
would equal Uncle Tom's ; still, such cases are 
not very frequent. 

The stirring up of strife between neighbors, 
that the Southern Press complains of, deserves 
notice. Who are neighbors 1 The most explicit 
answer to this question will be found in the reply 
Christ made to the lawyer, when he asked it of 
him. Another question will arise, Whether, in 
Christ's judgment, Mrs. Stowe would be con- 
sidered a neighbor or an incendiary 1 As the Al- 
mighty Ruler of the universe and the Maker of 
man has said that He has made all the nations of 
the earth of one blood, and man in His own image, 
the black man, irrespective of his color, would 
seem to be a neighbor who has fallen among his 
enemies, that have deprived him of the fruits of 
his labor, his liberty, his right to his wife and 
children, his right to obtain the knowledge to 
read, or to anything that earth holds dear, except 
such portions of food and raiment as will fit him 
for his despoiler's purposes. Let not the apolo- 
gists for slavery bring up the isolated cases of 
leniency, giving instruction, and affectionate at- 
tachment, that are found among some masters, as 
specimens of slavery ! It is unfair ! They form 
exceptions, and much do I respect them ; but they 
are not the rules of slavery. The strife that is 
being stirred up is not to take away anything that 
belongs to another, — neither their silver or gold, 
their tine linen or purple, their houses or hind, 
their horses or cattle, or anything that is their 
property ; but to rescue a neighbor from their un- 
manly cupidity. A Republican. 

No introduction is necessary to explain 
the following correspondence, and no com- 
mendation will be required to secure for it 
a respectful attention from thinking readers : 

5 WashinglonCity, D. C, 
} Dec. 6, 1852. 

D. R. Goodloe, Esq. 

Dear Sir : I understand that you are a North 

Carolinian, and have always resided in the South : 



G4 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



you must, consequently, be acquainted with the 
workings of the institution of slavery. You have 
doubtless also read that world-renowned book, 
" Uncle Tom's Cabin," by Mrs.Stowe. The apolo- 
gists for slavery deny that this book is a truthful 
picture of slavery. They say that its representa- 
tions are exaggerated, its scenes and incidents 
unfounded, and, in a word, that the whole book is 
a caricature. They also deny that families are 
separated, — that children are sold from their 
parents, wives from their husbands, &c. Under 
these circumstances, I am induced to ask your 
opinion of Mrs. Stowe's book, and whether or not, 
in your opinion, her statements are entitled to 
credit. I have the honor to be, 

Yours, truly, 

A. M. Gangewer. 

Washington, Dec. 8, 1852. 

Dear Sir : Your letter of the Gth inst. , asking 
my opinion of " Uncle Tom's Cabin," has been 
received ; and there being no reason why I should 
withhold it, unless it be the fear of public opinion 
(your object being, as I understand, the publication 
of my reply), I proceed to give it in some detail. 

A book of fiction, to be worth reading, must neces- 
sarily be filled with rare and striking incidents, 
and the leading characters must be remarkable, 
some for great virtues, others, perhaps, for great 
vices or follies. A narrative of the ordinary events 
in the lives of commonplace people would be in- 
sufferably dull and insipid ; and a book made up 
of such materials would be, to the elegant and 
graphic pictures of life and manners which we 
have in the writings of Sir Walter Scott and Dick- 
ens, what a surveyor's plot of a ten-acre field is 
to a painted landscape, in which the eye is charmed 
by a thousand varieties of hill and dale, of green 
shrubbery and transparent water, of light and 
shade, at a glance. In order to determine whether 
a novel is a fair picture of society, it is not neces- 
sary to ask if its chief personages are to be met with 
every day ; but whether they are characteristic of 
the times and country, — whether they embody the 
prevalent sentiments, virtues, vices, follies, and pe- 
culiarities, — and whether the events, tragic or 
otherwise, are such as may and do occasionally 
occur. 

Judging " Uncle Tom's Cabin" by these prin- 
ciples,! have no hesitation in saying that it is a 
faithful portraiture of Southern life and institu- 
tions. There is nothing in the book inconsistent 
with the laws and usages of the slave-holding 
states ; the virtues, vices, and peculiar hues of 
character and manners, are allSoutherh, and must 
be recognized at once by every one who reads the 
book. 1 may never have seen such depravity in one 
man as that exhibited in the character of Legree, 
though I have ten thousand times witnessed the va- 
rious shades of it in different individuals. On the 
other hand, I have never seen so many perfections 
concentrated in one human being as Mrs. Stowc has 
conferred upon the daughter of a slave-holder. 
Evangeline is an image of beauty and goodness 
which can never he effaced from the mind, what- 
ever may he its prejudices. Yet her whole char- 
acter is fragrant of the South ; her generous sym- 
pathy, her beauty and delicacy, her sensibility, 
are all Southern. They are " to the manor born," 
and embodying as they do the Southern ideal of 
beauty and loveliness, cannot be ostracized from 
Southern hearts, even by the power of the vigilance 
committees. 



The character of St. Clare cannot fail to inspire 
love and admiration. lie is the beau ideal of a 
Southern gentleman, — honorable, generous and 
humane, of accomplished manners, liberal edu- 
cation, and easy fortune. In his treatment of his 
slaves, he errs on the side of lenity, rather than 
vigor ; and is always their kind protector, from 
a natural impulse of goodness, without much reflec- 
tion upon what may befall them when death or 
misfortune shall deprive them of his friendship. 

Mr. Shelby, the original owner of Unc'ie Tom, 
and who sells him to a trader, from the pressure 
of a sort of pecuniary necessity, is by no means a 
bad character ; his wife and son are whatever 
honor and humanity could wish ; and, in a word, 
the only white persons who make any considerable 
figure in the book to a disadvantage are the vil- 
lain Legree, who is a Vermonter by birth, and the 
oily-tongued slave-trader Daley, who has the ac- 
cent of a Northerner. It is, therefore, evident 
that Mrs. Stowe's object in writing " Uncle Tom's 
Cabin" has not been to disparage Southern char- 
acter. A careful analysis of the book would au- 
thorize the opposite inference, — that she has stud- 
ied to shield the Southern people from opprobrium, 
and even to convey an elevated idea of Southern 
society, at the moment of exposing the evils of the 
svstein of slavery. She directs her batteries against 
the institution, not against individuals ; and gener- 
ously makes a renegade Vermonter stand for her 
most hideous picture of a brutal tyrant. 

Invidious as the duty may be, I cannot with- 
hold my testimony to the fact that families of 
slaves are often separated. I know not how any 
man can have the hardihood to deny it. The 
thing is notorious, and is often the subject of pain- 
ful remark in the Southern States. I have often 
heard the practice of separating husband and wife, 
parent and child, defended, apologized for, pal- 
liated in a thousand ways, but have never heard 
it denied. How could it be denied, in fact, when 
probably the very circumstance which elicited the 
conversation was a case of cruel separation then 
transpiring 1 No, sir ! the denial of this fact by 
mercenary scribblers may deceive persons at a dis- 
tance, but it can impose upon no one at the South. 

In all the slave-holding states the relation of 
matrimony between slaves, or between a slave 
and free person, is merely voluntary. There is no 
law sanctioning it, or recognizing it in any shape, 
directly or indirectly. In a word, it is illicit, and 
binds no one, — neither the slaves themselves nor 
their masters. In separating husband and wife, 
or parent and child, the trader or owner violates 
no law of the state — neither statute nor common 
law. He buys or sells at auction or privately 
that wdiieh the majesty of the law has declared to 
be property. The victims may writhe in agony, 
and the tender-hearted spectator may look on with 
gloomy sorrow and indignation, but it is to no pur- 
pose. The promptings of mercy and justice in the 
heart are only in rebellion against the law of the 
land. 

The law itself not unfrequontly performs the 
most cruel separations of families, almost with- 
out the intervention of individual agency. This 
happens in the case of persons who die insolvent, 
or who become so during lifetime. The estate, 
real and personal, must bo disposed of at auction 
to the highest bidder, and the executor, adminis- 
trator, sheriff, trustee, or other person whose duty 
it is to dispose of the property, although lie may 
possess the most humane intentions in the world. 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



65 



cannot prevent the final severance of the most 
endearing ties of kindred. The illustration given 
by Mrs. Stowe, in the sale of Uncle Tom by Mr. 
Shelby, is a very common case. Pecuniary embar- 
rassment is a most fruitful source of misfortune to 
the slave as well as the master ; and instances of 
family ties broken from this cause are of daily 
occurrence. 

It often happens that great abuses exist in vio- 
lation of law, and in spite of the efforts of the au- 
thorities to suppress them ; such is the case with 
drunkenness, gambling, and other vices. But here 
is a law common to all the slave-holding states, 
which upholds and gives countenance to the wrong- 
doer, while its blackest terrors are reserved for 
those who would interpose to protect the inno- 
cent. Statesmen of elevated and honorable char- 
acters, from a vague notion of state necessity, 
have defended this law in the abstract, while they 
would, without hesitation, condemn every instance 
of its application as unjust. 

In one respect I am glad to see it publicly 
denied that the families of slaves are separated ; 
for while it argues a disreputable want of" candor, 
it at the same time evinces a commendable sense 
of shame, and induces the hope that the public 
opinion at the South will not much longer tolerate 
this most odious, though not essential, part of the 
system of slavery. 

In this connection I will call to your recollection 
a remark of the editor of the Southern Press, in 
one of the last numbers of that paper, which ac- 
knowledges the existence of the abuse in question, 
and recommends its correction. He says : 

" The South has a great moral conflict to wage ; 
and it is for her to put on the most invulnerable 
moral panoply. Hence it is her duty, as well as 
interest, to mitigate or remove whatever of evil that 
results incidentally from the institution. The 
separation of husband and wife, parent and child, 
is one of these evils, which we know is generally 
avoided and repudiated there — although cases 
sometimes occur which we observe are seized by 
these Northern fanatics as characteristic illustra- 
tions of the system. Now we can see no great evil 
or inconvenience, but much good, in the prohibi- 
tion by law of such occurrences. Let the husband 
and wife be sold together, and the parents and 
minor children. Such a law would affect but 
slightly the general value or availability of slave 

f>roperty, and would prevent in some cases the vio- 
ence done to the feelings of such connections by 
sales either compulsory or voluntary. We are sat- 
isfied that it would be beneficial to the master and 
slave to promote marriage, and the observance of 
all its duties and relations." 

Much as I have differed with the editor of the 
Southern Press in his general views of public 
policy, I am disposed to forgive him past errors in 
consideration of his public acknowledgment of 
this " incidental evil," and his frank recommend- 
ation of its removal. A Southern newspaper less 
devoted than the Southern Press to the mainte- 
nance of slavery would be seriously compromised 
by such a suggestion, and its advice would be 
far less likely to be heeded. I think, therefore, 
that Mr. Fisher deserves the thanks of every good 
man, North and South, for thus boldly pointing out 
the necessity of reform. 

The picture which Mrs. Stowe has drawn of slav- 
ery as an institution is anything but favorable. 
She has illustrated the frightful cruelty and op- 
pression that must result from a law which gires 



to one class of society almost absolute and irre- 
sponsible power over another. Yet the very ma- 
chinery she has employed for this purpose shows 
that all who are parties to the system are not 
necessarily culpable. It is a high virtue in St. 
Clare to purchase Uncle Tom. He is actuated by 
no selfish or improper motive. Moved by a desire 
to gratify his daughter, and prompted by his own 
humane feelings, he purchases a slave, in order to 
rescue him from a hard fate on the plantations. If 
he had not been a slave-holder before, it was now 
his duty to become one. This, I think, is the moral 
to be drawn from the story of St. Clare ; and the 
South have a right to claim the authority of Mrs. 
Stowe in defence of slave-holding, to this extent. 

It may be said that it was the duty of St. Clare 
to emancipate Uncle Tom ; but the wealth of the 
Ilothschilds would not enable a man to act out his 
benevolent instincts at such a price. And if such 
was his duty, is it not equally the duty of every 
monied man in the free states to attend the New 
Orleans slave-mart with the same benevolent pur- 
pose in view 1 It seems to me that to purchase a 
slave with the purpose of saving him from a hard 
and cruel fate, and without any view to emanci- 
pation, is itself a good action. If the slave should 
subsequently become able to redeem himself, it 
would doubtless he the duty of the owner to eman- 
cipate him ; and it would be but even-handed 
justice to sec down every dollar of the slave's earn- 
ings, above the expense of his maintenance, to his 
credit, until the price paid for him should be fully 
restored. This is all that justice could exact of 
the slave-holder. 

Those who have railed against " Uncle Tom's 
Cabin" as an incendiary publication have singu- 
larly (supposing that they have read the book) over- 
looked the moral of the hero's life. Uncle Tom is 
the most faithful of servants. He literally " obeyed 
in all things" his " masters according to the 
flesh ; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but 
in singleness of heart, fearing God." If his con- 
duct exhibits the slightest departure from a lit- 
eral fulfilment of this injunction of Scripture, 
it is in a case which must command the appro- 
bation of the most rigid casuist ; for the injunc- 
tion of obedience extends, of course, only to law- 
ful commands. It is only when the monster 
Legree commands him to inflict undeserved chas- 
tisement upon his fellow-servants, that Uncle Tom 
refuses obedience. He would not listen to a prop- 
osition of escaping into Ohio with the young 
woman Eliza, on the night after they were sold 
by Mr. Shelby to the trader Haley. He thought 
it would be bad faith to his late master, whom he 
had nursed in his arms, and might be the means 
of bringing him into difficulty. He offered no 
resistance to Haley, and obeyed even Legree in 
every legitimate command. But when he was 
required to be the instrument of his master's 
cruelty, he chose rather to die, with the courage 
and resolution of a Christian martyr, than to save 
his life by a guilty compliance. Such was Uncle 
Tom — not a bad example for the imitation of man 
or master. I am, sir, very respectfully, 

Your ob't serv't, 

Daniel R. Goodloe. 

A. M. Gangewer, Esq., 
Washington, D. C. 

The writer has received permission to 
publish the following extract from a letter 
received by a lady at the North from the 



C6 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



editor of a Southern paper. The mind and 
character of the author will speak for them- 
selves, in the reading of it : 

Charleston, Sunday, 25th July, 1852. 
* * * The books, I infer, are Mrs. Beecher 
Stowe's " Uncle Tom's Cabin." The book was fur- 
nished me by , about a fortnight ago, 

and you may be assured I read it with an atten- 
tive interest. ' ' Now, what is your opinion of it J" 
you will ask ; and, knowing my preconceived opin- 
ions upon the question of slavery, and the em- 
bodiment of my principles, which I have so long 
supported, in regard to that peculiar institution, 
you may be prepared to meet an indirect answer. 
This my own consciousness of truth would not 
allow, in the present instance. The book is a 
truthful picture of life, with the dark outlines 
beautifully portrayed. The life — the character- 
istics, incidents, and the dialogues — is life itself 
reduced to paper. In her appendix she rather 
evades the question whether it was taken from 
actual scenes, but says there are many counter- 
parts. In this she is correct, beyond doubt. Had 
she changed the picture of Legree, on Red river, 

for , on Island, South Carolina, she 

could not have drawn a more admirable portrait. 
I am led to question whether she had not some 
knowledge of this beast, as he is known to be, 
and made the transposition for effect. 

My position in connection with the extreme 
party, both in Georgia and South Carolina, would 
constitute a restraint to the full expression of my 
feelings upon several of the governing principles of 
the institution. I have studied slavery, in all its 
different phases, — have been thrown in contact 
with the negro in different parts of the world, and 
made it my aim to study his nature, so far as my 
limited abilities would give me light, — and, 
whatever my opinions have been, they were based 
upon what I supposed to be honest convictions. 

During the last three years you well know 
•what my opportunities have been to examine all 
the sectional bearings of an institution which now 
holds the great and most momentous question of 
our federal well-being. These opportunities I 
have not let pass, but have given myself, body and 
soul, to a knowledge of its vast intricacies, — to 
its constitutional compact, and its individual 
hardships. Its wrongs are in the constituted 
rights of the master, and the blank letter of those 
laws which pretend to govern the bondman's 
rights. What legislative act, based upon the 
construction of self-protection for the very men 
who contemplate the laws, — even though their 
intention was amelioration, — could be enforced, 
when the legislated object is held as the bond prop- 
erly of the legislator '! The very fact of constituting 
a law for the amelioration of property becomes an 
absurdity, so far as carrying it out is concerned. 
A law which is intended to govern, and gives 
the governed no means of seeking its protection, 
is like the clustering together of so many use- 
less words for vain show. But why talk of law* 



That which is considered the popular rights of a 
people, and every tenacious prejudice set forth to 
protect its property interest, creates its own power, 
against every weaker vessel. Laws which inter- 
fere with this become unpopular, — repugnant to 
a forceable will, and a dead letter in effect. So 
long as the voice of the governed cannot be heard, 
and his wrongs are felt beyond the jurisdiction or 
domain of the law, as nine-tenths are, where is 
the hope of redress ? The master is the powerful 
vessel; the negro feels his dependence, and, fear- 
ing the consequences of an appeal for his rights, 
submits to the cruelty of his master, in preference 
to the dread of something more cruel. It is in 
those disputed cases of cruelty we find the wrongs 
of slavery, and in those governing laws which give 
power to bad Northern men to become the most 
cruel task-masters. Do not judge, from my obser- 
vations, that I am seeking consolation for the 
abolitionists. Such is not my intention ; but truth 
to a course which calls loudly for reformation con- 
strains me to say that humanity calls for some 
law to govern the force and absolute will of the 
master, and to reform no part is more requisite 
than that which regards the slave's food and 
raiment. A person must live years at the South 
before he can become fully acquainted with the 
many workings of slavery. A Northern man not 
prominently interested in the political and social 
weal of the South may live for years in it, and 
pass from town to town in his every-day pursuits, 
and yet see but the polished side of slavery. With 
me it has been different. Its effect upon the 
negro himself, and its effect upon the social and 
commercial well-being of Southern society, has 
been laid broadly open to me, and I have seen 
more of its workings within the past year than 
was disclosed to me all the time before. It is 
with these feelings that I am constrained to do 
credit to Mrs. Stowe's book, which I consider 
must have been written by one who derived the 
materials from a thorough acquaintance with the 
subject. The character of the slave-dealer, the 
bankrupt owner in Kentucky, and the Now Or- 
leans merchant, are simple every-day occurrences 
in these parts. Editors may speak of the dramatic 
effect as they please ; the tale is not told them, 
and the occurrences of common reality would form 
a picture more glaring. I could write a work, 
with date and incontrovertible facts, of abuses 
which stand recorded in the knowledge of the 
community in which they were transacted, that 
would need no dramatic effect, and would stand 
out ten-fold more horrible than anything Mrs. 
Stowe has described. 

I have read two columns in the Soul/urn Press 
of Mrs. Eastman's " Aunt Pliillis' Cabin, or 
Southern Life as It Is," with the remarks of the 
editor. I have no comments to make upon it, that 
being done by itself. The editor might have 
saved himself being-writ down an ass by the pub- 
lic, if he had withheld his nonsense. If the two 
columns are a specimen of Mrs. Eastman's book, 
I pity her attempt and her uamo as an author. 



PART II. 



CHAPTER I. 

TnE New York Courier and Enquirer 
of November 5th contained an article which 
has been quite valuable to the author, as 
summing up, in a clear, concise and intel- 
ligible form, the principal objections which 
may be urged to Uncle Tom's Cabin. It 
is here quoted in full, as the foundation of 
the remarks in the following pages. 

The author of " Uncle Tom's Cabin," that 
writer states, has committed false-witness 
against thousands and millions of her fellow- 
men. 

She has done it [he says] by attaching to them 
as slaveholders, in the eyes of the world, the guilt 
of the abuses of an institution of which they are 
absolutely guiltless. Her story is so devised as 
to j}resent slavery in three dark aspects : first, the 
cruel treatment of the slaves ; second, the separa- 
tion of families; and, third, their want of religious 
instruction. 

To show the first, she causes a reward to be 
offered for the recovery of a runaway slave, " dead 
or alive," when no reward with such an alterna- 
tive was ever heard of, or dreamed of, south of 
Mason and Dixon's line, and it has been decided 
over and over again in Southern courts that " a 
slave who is merely flying away cannot be killed." 
She puts such language as this into the mouth of 
one of her speakers : — "The master who goes 
furthest and does the worst only uses within 
limits the power that the law gives him ;" when, 
in fact, the civil code of the very state where it is 
represented the language was uttered — Louisiana 
— declares that 

" The slave is entirely subject to the will of his 
master, who may correct and chastise him, though 
not with unusual rigor, nor so as to maim or muti- 
late him, or to expose him to the danger of loss of 
life, or to cause his death.'" 

And provides for a compulsory sale 

" When the master shall be convicted of cruel 
treatment of his slaves, and the judge shall deem 
proper to pronounce, besides the penalty estab- 
lished for such cases, that the slave be sold at 
public auction, in order to place him out of the 
reach of the power which the master has abused." 

" If any person whatsoever shall wilfully kill 
his slave, or the slave of another person, the said 
person, being convicted thereof, shall bo tried and 
condemned agreeably to the laws." 

In the General Court of Virginia, last year, in 
the case of Souther v. the Commonwealth, it was 
held that the killing of a slave by his master and 



owner, by wilful and excessive whipping, is mur- 
der in the first degree, though it may not have been 
the purpose of the master and owner to hill the 
slave ! And it is not six months since Governor 
Johnston, of Virginia, pardoned a slave who 
killed his master, who was beating him with 
brutal severity. 

And yet, in the face of such laws and decisions 
as these, Mrs. Stowe winds up a long series of 
cruelties upon her other black personages, by 
causing her faultless hero, Tom, to be literally 
whipped to death in Louisiana, by his master, 
Legree ; and these acts, which the laws make 
criminal, and punish as such, she sets forth in 
the most repulsive colors, to illustrate the insti- 
tution of slavery ! 

So, too, in reference to the separation of chil- 
dren from their parents. A considerable part of 
the plot is made to hinge upon the selling, in 
Louisiana, of the child Eliza, " eight or nine 
years old," away from her mother; when, had 
its inventor looked in the statute-book of Louis- 
iana, she would have found the following lan- 
guage : 

" Every person is expressly prohibited from 
selling separately from their mothers the children 
who shall not have attained the full age of ten 
years. ' ' 

" Be it further enacted, That if any person or 
persons shall sell the mother of any slave child 
or children under the age of ten years, separate 
from said child or children, or shall, the mother 
living, sell any slave child or children of ten years 
of age, or under, separate from said mother, said 
person or persons shall be fined not less than 
one thousand nor more than two thousand dollars, 
and be imprisoned in the public jail for a period 
of not less than six months nor more than one 
year." 

The privation of religious instruction, as repre- 
sented by Mrs. Stowe, is utterly unfounded in fact. 
The largest churches in the Union consist entirely 
of slaves. The first African church in Louisville, 
which numbers fifteen hundred persons, and the 
first African church in Augusta, which numbers 
thirteen hundred, are specimens. On multitudes 
of the large plantations in the different parts of 
the South the ordinances of the gospel are as reg- 
ularly maintained, by competent ministers, as in 
any other communities, north or south. A larger 
proportion of the slave population are in commu- 
nion with some Christian church, than of the white 
population in any part of the country. A very 
considerable portion of every southern congiv^a 
tion, either in city or country, is sure to consist 
of blacks ; whereas, of our northern churches, not 
a colored person is to be seen in one out of fifty. 

The peculiar falsity of this whole book consists 
in making exceptional or impossible cases the rep- 



G8 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



resentatives of the system. By the same process 
which she has used, it would not be difficult to 
frame a fatal argument against the relation of 
husband and wife, or parent and child, or of guard- 
ian and ward ; for thousands of wives and chil- 
dren and wards have been maltreated, and even 
murdered. It is wrong, unpardonably wrong, to 
impute to any relation of life those enormities 
which spring only out of the worst depravity of 
human nature. A ridiculously extravagant spirit 
of generalization pervades this fiction from begin- 
ning to end. The Uncle Tom of the authoress is 
a perfect angel, and her blacks generally are half 
angels ; her Simon Legree is a perfect demon, 
and her whites generally are half demons. She has 
quite a peculiar spite against the clergy ; and, of 
the many she introduces at different times into 
the scenes, all, save an insignificant exception, 
are Pharisees or hypocrites. One who could 
know nothing of the United States and its people, 
except by what he might gather from this book, 
would judge that it was some region just on the 
confines of the infernal world. We do not say that 
Mrs. Stowe was actuated by wrong motives in the 

i reparation of this work, but we do say that she 
las done a wrong which no ignorance can excuse 
and no penance can expiate. 

A much- valued correspondent of the au- 
thor, writing from Richmond, Virginia, also 
uses the following language : 

I will venture this morning to make a few 
suggestions which have occurred to me in regard 
to future editions of your work, " Uncle Tom's 
Cabin, r ' which I desire should have all the influence 
of which your genius renders it capable, not only 
abroad, but in the local sphere of slavery, where 
it has been hitherto repudiated. Possessing al- 
ready the great requisites of artistic beauty and 
of sympathetic affection, it may yet be improved 
in regard to accuracy of statement without being 
at all enfeebled. For example, you do less than 
justice to the formalized laws of the Southern 
States, while you give more credit than is due to 
the virtue of public or private sentiment in restrict- 
ing the evil which the laws permit. 

I enclose the following extracts from a southern 
paper : 

"' I '11 manage thatar ; they 's young in the business, 
and must speet to work cheap,' said Marks, as he con- 
tinued to read. ' Thar 's three on 'em easy cases, 'cause 
all you've got to do is to shoot 'cm, or swear they is shot ; 
they couldn't, of course, chargo much for that.' " 

" The reader will observe that two charges 
against the South are involved in this precious 
discourse ; — one that it is the habit of Southern 
masters to offer a reward, with the alternative of 
' dead or alive,' for their fugitive slaves ; and the 
other, that it is usual for pursuers to siioot them, 
[ndeed, we are led to infer that, as the shooting 
is the easier mode 01 obtaining the reward, it is 
the more frequently employed in such cases. 
Now, when a southern master offers a reward for 
ins runaway slave, it is becau ■ be has lost a cer- 
tain amount of property, represented by the negro 
which he wishes to recover. What man of Ver- 
mont, having an ox or an ass that had gone astray, 
would forthwith oflfer half the full value of the 
animal, not for the carcass, which might be turned 
to some useful purpose, but for the unavailing satis- 
faction of its head ! 5fel are tb i two cases exactly 
parallel YVVftlr regard tc the assumption that 



men are permitted to go about, at the South, with 
double-barrelled guns, shooting down runaway 
negroes, in preference to apprehending them, we 
can only say that it is as wicked and wilful as it 
is ridiculous. Such Thugs there may have been 
as Marks and Loker, who have killed negroes in 
this unprovoked manner ; but, if they have escaped 
the gallows, they are probably to be found within 
the walls of our state penitentiaries, where they , 
are comfortably provided for at public expense. 
The laws of the Southern States, which are de- 
signed, as in all good governments, for the pro- 
tection of persons and property, have not been 
so loosely framed as to fail of their object where 
person and property are one. 

" The law with regard to the killing of runaways 
is laid down with so much clearness and precision 
by a South Carolina judge, that we cannot forbear 
quoting his dictum, as directly in point. In the 
case of Witsell v. Earnest and Parker, Colcock J. 
delivered the opinion of the court : 

" ' By the statute of 1740, any white man may 
apprehend, and moderately correct, any slave who 
may be found out of the plantation at which he is 
employed ; and if the slave assaults the white 
person, he may be killed ; but a slave who is 
merely flying away cannot be killed. Nor can the 
defendants be justified by the common law, if Ave 
consider the negro as a person ; for j an .term isis. 
they were not clothed with the au- l Nott & Mc- 
thority of the law to apprehend him Cora's s. G. 
as a felon, and without such authority kep ' 
he could not be killed.' 

" ' It 's commonly supposed that the property interest 
is a sufficient guard in these cases. If people choose to 
ruin their possessions, I don't know what 's to be done. 
It seems the poor creature was a thief and a drunkard ; 
and so there won't be much hope to get up sympathy for 
her.' 

'" It is perfectly outrageous, — it is horrid, Augustine ! 
It will certainly bring down vengeance upon you.' 

" ' My dear cousin, I did n't do it, and I can't help it ; 
I would, if I could. If low-minded, brutal people will 
act like themselves, what am I to do 1 They have abso- 
lute control ; they are irresponsible despots . There would be 
no use in interfering ; there is no law, that a?nounts to any- 
thing practically, for such a case. The best we can do is to 
shut our eyes and ears, and let it alone. It 's the only 
resource left us.' 

" In a subsequent part of the same conversa- 
tion, St. Clare says : 

" • For pity's sake, for shame's sake, because we are 
men born of women, and not savage beasts, many of us do 
not, and dare not, — we would scorn to use the full power 
which our savage laws put into our hands. And he who 
goes furthest and does the worst only uses within limits the 
power that the law gives him.' 

" Mrs. Stowe tells us, through St. Clare, that 
' there is no law that amounts to anything ' in 
such cases, and that he who goes furthest in 
severity towards his slave, — that is, to the de- 
privation of an eye or a limb, or even the destruc- 
tion of life, — ' only uses within limits the power 
that the law gives him.' This is an awful and 
tremendous charge, which, lightly and unwarrant- 
ablv made, must subject the maker to a fearful 
accountability. Let us see how the matter stands 
upon the statute-book of Louisiana. By referring 
to the civil code of that state, chapter 3d, article 
li;'>, tho reader will find this general declaration : 

" ' The slave is entirely subject to the will of 
his master, who may correct and chastiso him, 
though not with unusual rigor, nor so as to maim 
or mutilate him, or to expose him to the danger of 
loss of life, or to cause his death.' 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



69 



" On a subsequent page of the same volume and 
chapter, article 192, we find provision made for 
the slave's protection against his master's cruelty, 
in the statement that one of two cases, in which 
a master can be compelled to sell his slave, is 

" ' When the master shall be convicted of cruel 
treatment of his slave, and the judge shall deem 
proper to pronounce, besides the penalty established 
for such cases, that the slave shall be sold at public 
auction, in order to place him out of the reach of the 
power which the master has abused.' 

" A code thus watchful of the negro's safety in 
life and limb confines not its guardianship to in- 
hibitory clauses, but proscribes extreme penalties 
in case of their infraction. In the Code Noir 
(Black Code) of Louisiana, under head of Crimes 
and Offences, No. 55, § xvi., it is laid down, that 

" ' If any person whatsoever shall wilfully kill 
his slave, or the slave of another person, the said 
person, being convicted thereof, shall be tried 
and condemned agreeably to the laws.' 

" And because negro testimony is inadmissible 
in the courts of the state, and therefore the evi- 
dence of such crimes might be with difficulty sup- 
plied, it is further provided that, 

" ' If any slave be mutilated, beaten or ill- 
treated, contrary to the true intent and meaning 
of this act, when no one shall be present, in such 
case the owner, or other person having the man- 
agement of said slave thus mutilated, shall be 
deemed responsible and guilty of the said offence, 
and shall be prosecuted without further evidence, 
unless the said owner, or other person so as afore- 
said, can prove the contrary by means of good and 
sufficient evidence, or can clear himself by his 
own oath, which said oath every court, under the 

Code Noir. cognizance of which such offence shall 
Crimes and Of- have been examined and tried, is by 
fences, 56, xvii. ^jg ac ^ authorized to administer.' 

" Enough has been quoted to establish the utter 
falsity of the statement, made by our authoress 
through St. Clare, that brutal masters are ' irre- 
sponsible despots,' — at least in Louisiana. It 
would extend our review to a most unreasonable 
length, should we undertake to give the law, with 
regard to the murder of slaves, as it stands in 
each of the Southern States. The crime is a rare 
one, and therefore the reporters have had few 
cases to record. We may refer, however, to two. 
In Fields v. the State of Tennessee, the plaintiff in 
error was indicted in the circuit court of Maury 
county for the murder of a negro slave. He 
pleaded not guilty ; and at the trial was found 

fuilty of wilful and felonious slaying of the slave, 
'rom this sentence he prosecuted his writ of error, 
which was disallowed, the court affirming the orig- 
inal judgment. The opinion of the court, as given 
by Peck J., overflows with the spirit of enlight- 
ened humanity. He concludes thus : 

" ' It is well said by one of the judges of North 
Carolina, that the master has a right to exact the 
labor of his slave ; that far, the rights of the slave 
are suspended ; but this gives the master no right 
over the life of his slave. I add to the saying of 
the judge, that law which says thou shalt not kill, 
protects the slave ; and he is within 
l Yergers its very letter. Law, reason, Chris- 
Tenn^iiep. t i an i ty> an( j CO mmon humanity, all 
point but one way. ' 
" In the General Court of Virginia, June term, 
1851, in Souther v. the Commonwealth, it was held 
that ' the killing of a slave by his master and 
owner, by wilful and excessive whipping, is mur- 
der in the first degree ; though it may not have been 



the purpose of the master and owner to 
kill the slave: The writer shows, 7 R ^ rat ^' s 
also, an ignorance of the law of con- 
tracts, as it affects slavery in the South, in mak- 
ing George's master take him from the factory 
against the proprietor's consent. George, by vir- 
tue of the contract of hiring, had become the prop- 
erty of the proprietor for the time being, and his 
master could no more have taken him away forci- 
bly than the owner of a house in Massachusetts 
can dispossess his lessee, at any moment, from 
mere whim or caprice. There is no court in Ken- 
tucky where the hirer's rights, in this regard,- 
would not be enforced. 

" ■ No. Father bought her once, in one of his trips to 
New Orleans, and brought her up as a present to mother. 
She was about eight or nine years old, then. Father 
would never tell mother what he gave for her ; but, the 
other day, in looking over his old papers, we came across 
the bill of sale. He paid an extravagant sum for her, to 
be sure. I suppose, on account of her extraordinary 
beauty.' 

'* George sat with his back to Cassy, and did not see 
the absorbed expression of her countenance, as he was 
giving these details. 

" At this point in the story, she touched his arm, and, 
with a face perfectly white with interest, said, ' Do you 
know the names of the people he bought her of 1 ' 

" ' A man of the name of Simmons, I think, was the 
principal in the transaction. At least, I think that was 
the name in the bill of sale.' 

" ' 0, my God ! ' said Cassy, and fell insensible on the 
floor of the cabin." 

" Of course Eliza turns out to be Cassy 's child, 
and we are soon entertained with the family meet- 
ing in Montreal, where George Harris is living, 
five or six years after the opening of the story, in 
great comfort. 

" Now, the reader will perhaps be surprised to 
know that such an incident as the sale of Cassy 
apart from Eliza, upon which the whole interest 
of" the foregoing narrative hinges, never could have 
taken place in Louisiana, and that the bill of sale 
for Eliza would not have been worth the paper it 
was written on. Observe. George Shelby states 
that Eliza was eight or nine years old at the time 
his father purchased her in New Orleans. Let us 
again look at the statute-book of Louisiana. 

" In the Code Noir we find it set down that 

" ' Every person is expressly prohibited from 
selling separately from their mothers the children 
icho shall not have attained the full age often years: 

"And this humane provision is strengthened by 
a statute, one clause of which runs as follows : 

" ' Be it further enacted, That if any person or 
persons shall sell the mother of any slave child or 
children under the age of ten years, separate from 
said child or children, or shall, the mother living, 
sell any slave child or children of ten years of age, or 
under, separate from said mother, such person or 
persons shall incur the penalty of the sixth section 
of this act.' 

"This penalty is a fine of not less than one thou 
sand nor more than two thousand dollars, and im- 
prisonment in the public jail for a period of not 
less than six months nor more than one year. — 
Vide Acts of Louisiana, 1 Session, 9th Legislature, 
1828, 1829, No. 24, Section 16." 

The author makes here a remark. Scat- 
tered through all the Southern States are 
slaveholders who are such only in name. 
They have no pleasure in the system, they 
consider it one of wrong altogether, and they 



70 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



hold the legal relation still, only because not 
yet clear with regard to the best way of 
changing it, so as to better the condition of 
those held. Such are most earnest advo- 
cates for state emancipation, and are friends 
of anything, written in a right spirit, which 
tends in that direction. From such the 
author ever receives criticisms with pleasure. 

She has endeavored to lay before the 
world, in the fullest manner, all that can be 
objected to her work, that both sides may 
have an opportunity of impartial hearing. 

When writing " Uncle Tom's Cabin," 
though entirely unaware and unexpectant 
of the importance which would be attached 
to its statements and opinions, the author of 
that work was anxious, from love of consist- 
ency, to have some understanding of the 
laws of the slave system. She had on hand 
for reference; while writing, the Code Noir 
of Louisiana, and a sketch of the laws relat- 
inc to slavery in the different states, by 
Judge Stroud, of Philadelphia. This work, 
professing to have been compiled with great 
care from the latest editions of the statute- 
books of the several states, the author sup- 
posed to be a sufficient guide for the writing 
of a work of fiction.* As the accuracy of 
those statements which relate to the slave- 
laws has been particularly contested, a 
more especial inquiry has been made in this 
direction. Under the guidance and with 
the assistance of legal gentlemen of high 
standing, the writer has proceeded to examine 
the statements of Judge Stroud with regard 
to statute-law, and to follow them up with 
some inquiry into the decisions of courts. 
The result has been an increasing conviction 
on her part that the impressions first derived 
from Judge Stroud's work were correct ; and 
the author now can only give the words of 
St. Clare, as the best possible expression of 
the sentiments and opinion which this course 
of reading has awakened in her mind. 

Tliis cursed business, accursed of God and man, 
— what is it 1 Strip it of all its ornament, run it 
down to the root and nucleus of the whole, and 
what is it ! Why, because my brother Quashy is 
ignorant and weak, and I am intelligent and 
strong, — because I know how, and can do it, — 
therefore I may steal all he has, keep it, and give 
him only such and so much as suits my fancy ! 
Whatever is too hard, too dirty, too disagreeable 
for me, I may set Quashy to doing. Because I 
don't like work, Quashy shall work. Because the 
sun burns me, Quashy shall stay in the sun. 
Quashy shall earn the money, and 1 will spend it. 



Quashy shall lie down in every puddle, that I 
may walk over dry shod. Quashy shall do my 
will, and not his, all the days of his mortal life, 
and have such a chance of getting to heaven at 
last as I find convenient. This I take to be about 
what slavery is. I defy anybody on earth to read 
our slave-code, as it stands in our law-books, and 
make anything else of it. Talk of the abuses of 
slavery ! Humbug ! The thing itself is the essence 
of all abuse. And the only reason why the land 
don't sink under it, like Sodom and Gomorrah, is 
because it is used in a way infinitely better than 
it is. For pity's sake, for shame's sake, because 
we are men born of women, and not savage beasts, 
many of us do not, and dare not, — we would 
scorn to use the full power which our savage laws 
put into our hands. And he who goes the furthest, 
and does the worst, only uses within limits the 
power that the law gives him ! 

The author still holds to the opinion that 
slavery in itself, as legally defined in law- 
books and expressed in the records of courts, 

is the SUM AND ESSENCE OF ALL ABUSE ; 

and she still clings to the hope that there are 
many men at the South infinitely better 
than their laws ; and after the reader has 
read all the extracts which she has to make, 
for the sake of a common humanity they will 
hope the same. The author must state, with 
regard to some passages which she must 
quote, that the language of certain enact- 
ments was so incredible that she would not 
take it on the authority of any compilation 
whatever, but copied it with her own hand 
from the latest edition of the statute-book 
where it stood and still stands. 



* In this connection it may bo well to state that tho 
work of Judgo Stroud is now out of print, but that a work 
of tho same character is in courso of preparation by Wil- 
liam I. Bowditoh, Esq., of Boston, which will bring the 
6ubjcct out, by the assistance of tho latest editions of 
statutes, and tho most recoct decisions of courts. 



CHAPTER H. 

WHAT IS SLAVERY 1 

The author will now enter into a consid- 
eration of slavery as it stands revealed in 
slave law. 

What is it, according to the definition of 
law-books and of legal interpreters 7 ^ "A 
slave," says the law of Louisiana, "is one 
who is in the power of a master, to whom he 
belongs. The master may sell him, dispose 
of his person, his industry and his labor ; lie 
can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire 
anything, but what must belong to civil Code, 
his master." South Carolina says Art - 35 - 
" slaves shall be deemed, sold, taken, reputed 
and adjudged in law, to be chattels personal 
in the 'hands of their owners and possessors, 
and their executors, administrators, and 
assigns, TO all intents, con- 

o ' 2 Brev. Pig. 

STRUCTIONS AND PURPOSES WHAT- 2 29. Prince's 

soever. ' ' The law of G eorgia is 1)igest ' *** 
similar. 

Let the reader reflect on the extent of 
the meaning in this last clause. Judge 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



71 



Ruffin, pronouncing the opinion of the Su- 
preme Court of North Carolina, says, a slave 
is "one doomed in his own person, and his 
posterity, to live without knowledge, and 
without the capacity to make any- 
XS,m thing his own, and to toil that 
state v. Mann. ano ther may reap the fruits." 

This is what slavery is, — this is what it is 
to be a slave ! The slave-code, then, of the 
Southern States, is designed to keep millions 
of human beings in the condition of chattels 
personal ; to keep them in a condition in which 
the master may sell them, dispose of their 
time, person and labor ; in which they can do 
nothing, possess nothing, and acquire nothing, 
except for the benefit of the master ; in which 
they are doomed in themselves and in their 
posterity to live without knowledge, without 
the power to make anything their own, — to 
toil that another may reap. The laws of 
the slave-code are designed to work out this 
problem, consistently with the peace of the 
community, and the safety of that superior 
race which is constantly to perpetrate tins 
outrage. 

From this simple statement of what the 
laws of slavery are designed to do, — from a 
consideration that the class thus to be re- 
duced, and oppressed, and made the sub- 
jects of a perpetual robbery, are men of 
like passions with our own, men originally 
made in the image of God as much as our- 
selves, men partakers of that same human- 
ity of which Jesus Christ is the highest 
ideal and expression, — when we consider 
that the material thus to be acted upon is 
that fearfully explosive element, the soul of 
man ; that soul elastic, upspringing, immor- 
tal, whose free will even the Omnipotence 
of God refuses to coerce, — we may form 
some idea of the tremendous force which is 
necessary to keep this mightiest of elements 
in the state of repression which is contem- 
plated in the definition of slavery. 

Of course, the system necessary to con- 
summate and perpetuate such a work, from 
age to age, must be a fearfully stringent 
one ; and our readers will find that it is so. 
Men who make the laws, and men who in- 
terpret them, may be fully sensible of their 
terrible severity and inhumanity; but, if 
they are going to preserve the thing, they 
have no resource but to make the laws, and 
to execute them faithfully after they are 
made. They may say, with the honorable 
Judge Ruffin, of North Carolina, when sol- 
emnly from the bench announcing this great 
foundation principle of slavery, that " the 

POWER OP THE MASTER MUST BE ABSO- 



LUTE, TO RENDER THE SUBMISSION OF THE 

slave perfect," — they may say, with 
him, "I most freely confess my sense of 
the harshness of this proposition ; I feel it 
as deeply as any man can ; and, as a prin- 
ciple of moral right, every person in his re- 
tirement must repudiate it ; " — but they 
will also be obliged to add, with him, " But, 
in the actual condition of things, it must 
be so. * * This discipline belongs to 
the state of slavery. * * * It is in- 
herent in the relation of master and slave." 
And, like Judge Ruffin, men of honor, men 
of humanity, men of kindest and gentlest 
feelings, are obliged to interpret these severe 
laws with inflexible severity. In the per- 
petual reaction of that awful force of human 
passion and human will, which necessarily 
meets the compressive power of slavery, — 
in that seething, boiling tide, never wholly 
repressed, which rolls its volcanic stream un- 
derneath the whole frame- work of society 
so constituted, ready to find vent at the 
least rent or fissure or unguarded aperture, 
— there is a constant necessity which urges to 
severity of law and inflexibility of execution. 
So Judge Ruffin says, "We cannot allow 
the right of the matter to be brought into 
discussion in the courts of justice. The slave, 
to remain a slave, must be made sensible 
that there is no appeal from his mas- 
ter." Accordingly, we find in the more 
southern states, where the slave population 
is most accumulated, and slave property 
most necessary and valuable, and, of course, 
the determination to abide by the system the 
most decided, there the enactments are most 
severe, and the interpretation of courts the 
most inflexible.* And, when legal decisions 
of a contrary character begin to be made, it 
would appear that it is a symptom of leaning 
towards emancipation. So abhorrent is the 
slave-code to every feeling of humanity, that 
just as soon as there is any hesitancy in the 
community about perpetuating the institu- 
tion of slavery, judges begin to listen to the 
voice of their more honorable nature, and by 
favorable interpretations to soften its neces- 
sary severities. 

Such decisions do not commend them- 
selves to the professional admiration of legal 
gentlemen. But in the workings of the 
slave system, when the irresponsible power 
which it guarantees comes to be used by men 



* We except the State of Louisiana. Owing to the 
influence of the French codo in that state, more really 
humane provisions prevail there. How much these pro- 
visions avail in point of fact, will be shown when we come 
to that part of the subject. 



T. 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



of the most brutal nature, cases sometimes 
arise for trial where the consistent exposi- 
tion of the law involves results so loathsome 
and frightful, that the judge prefers to be 
illogical, rather than inhuman. Like a spring 
outgushing in the desert, some noble man, 
now and then, from the fulness of his own 
better nature, throws out a legal decision, 
generously inconsistent with every principle 
and precedent of slave jurisprudence, and 
we bless God for it. All we wish is that 
there were more of them, for then should 
we hope that the day of redemption was 
drawing nigh. 

The reader is now prepared to enter 
with us on the proof of this proposition : 
That the slave-code is designed only for the 
security of the master, and not with re- 
gard to the welfare of the slave. 

This is implied in the whole current of 
law-making and law-administration, and is 
often asserted in distinct form, with a pre- 
cision and clearness of legal accuracy which, 
in a literary point of view, are quite admira- 
ble. Thus, Judge Ruffin, after stating that 
considerations restricting the power of the 
master had often been drawn from a com- 
parison of slavery with the relation of parent 
and child, master and apprentice, tutor and 
pupil, says distinctly : 

The court does not recognize their application. 
There is no likeness between the cases. They are 
in opposition to each other, and there is an impass- 
able gulf between them. * * * . * 

In the one [case], the end in view is the happiness 
of tlie youth, born to equal rights with that gov- 
ernor, on whom the duty devolves of training the 
young to usefulness, in a station which he is after- 
wards to assume among freemen. * * * * With 
, slavery it is far other wise. The end 

cK«y)p5 " ihe P ro f U °f t] . ie master > his secu_ 
240. ritv and the public safety. 



Not only is this principle distinctly as- 
serted in so many words, but it is more dis- 
tinctly implied in multitudes of the arguings 
and reasonings winch are given as grounds 
of le^al decisions. Even such provisions as 
seem to be for the benefit of the slave we 
often find carefully interpreted so as to show 
that it is only on account of his property 
value to his master that he is thus protected, 
and not from any consideration of humanity 
towards himself. Thus it has been decided 
that a master can bring no action for assault 

wi ier'si*w and battery on his slave, unless 

of slavery, p. t/ ie injury be such as to pro- 
duce a loss of service. 

The spirit in which this question is dis- 
cussed is worthy of remark. We give a 



brief statement of the case, as presented in 
Wheeler, p. 239. 

It was an action for assault and battery 
committed by Dale on one Cornfute's slave. 
It was contended by Cornfute's counsel that 
it was not necessary to prove comfute». 
loss of service, in order that the ^f'^gS 
action should be sustained ; that inar.& Johns. 
an action might be supported for ep- 

beating plaintiff's horse; and usi-Z^yi- 
that the lord might have an ac- ner ' s Abr - 454 * 
tion for the battery of his villein, which is 
founded on this principle, that, as the villein 
could not support the action, the injury 
would be without redress, nnless the lord 
could. On the other side it was said that Lord 
Chief Justice Raymond had decided that 
an assault on a horse was no cause of action, 
unless accompanied with a special damage 
of the animal, which would impair his value. 
Chief Justice Chase decided that no re- 
dress could be obtained in the case, because 
the value of the slave had not been impaired, 
and without injury or wrong to the mas- 
ter no action could be sustained ; and as- 
signed this among other reasons for it, that 
there was no reciprocity in the case, as the 
master was not liable for assault and battery 
committed by his slave, neither could he gain 
redress for one committed upon Iris slave. 

Let any reader now imagine what an 
amount of wanton cruelty and indignity may 
be heaped upon a slave man or woman or 
child without actually impairing their power 
to do service to the master, and he will have 
a full sense of the cruelty of this decision. 

In the same spirit it has been held in 
North Carolina that patrols (night watch- 
men) are not liable to the master Tate „ 'Neai, 
for inflicting punishment on the [ T ^j£ ^t 
slave, unless their conduct clear- 2, p. 797, § 120. 
ly demonstrates malice against the master. 
The cool-bloodedness of some of these legal 
discussions is forcibly shown by two deci- 
sions in Wheeler's Law of Slavery, p. 243. 
On the question Avhether the criminal offence 
of assault and battery can be committed on 
a slave, there are two decisions of the two 
States of South and North Carolina ; audit 
is difficult to say which of these Sute ,, Mrinerj 
decisions has the preeminence Jgj^*^, 
for cool legal inhumanity. That Law of Slavery, 
of South Carolina reads thus. 
Judge O'Neill says : 



page 243. 



Tho criminal offence of assault and battery can 
not, at common law, lie committed upon the per- 
son of a slave. For notwithstanding (for some 
purposes) a Blave is regarded by law as a person, 
ye\ generally he is a mere chattel personal, and his 



KEY TO UNJLE TOM'S CABIN. 



73 



right of personal protection belongs to his master, 
■who can maintain an action of trespass for the bat- 
tery of his slave. There can be therefore no offence 
against the state for a mere beating of a slave unac- 
companied with any circumstances of cruelty (! !), 
or an attempt to kill and murder. The peace of 
the state is not thereby broken; for a slave is not 
generally regarded as legally capable of being 
within the peace of the state. He is not a citi- 
zen, and is not in that character entitled to her 
protection. 

What declaration of the utter indifference 
of the state to the sufferings of the slave 
could be more elegantly cool and clear? 
&e state v. But in North Carolina it appears 
p. 239. 2Hawk! that the case is argued still more 
N-c.Bep.58a elaborately. 

Chief Justice Taylor thus shows that, 
after all, there are reasons why an assault 
and battery upon the slave may, on the 
■whole, have some such general connection 
with the comfort and security of the com- 
munity, that it may be construed into a 
breach of the peace, and should be treated 
as an indictable offence. 

The instinct of a slave may be, and generally 
is, tamed into subservience to his master's will, 
and from him he receives chastisement, w T hether it 
be merited or not, with perfect submission ; for he 
knows the extent of the dominion assumed over 
him, and that the law ratifies the claim. But 
when the same authority is w r antonly usurped by 
a stranger, nature is disposed to assert her rights, 
and to prompt the slave to a resistance, often 
momentarily successful, sometimes fatally so. 
The public peace is thus broken, as much as if a 
free man had been beaten ; for the party of the 
aggressor is always the strongest, and such con- 
tests usually terminate by overpowering the slave, 
and inflicting on him a severe chastisement, with- 
out regard to the original cause of the conflict. 
There is, consequently, as much reason for mak- 
ing such offences indictable as if a white man had 
been the victim. A wanton injury committed on 
a slave is a great provocation to the owner, awakens 
his resentment, and has a direct tendency to a breach 
of the peace, by inciting him to seek immediate ven- 
geance. If resented in the heat of blood, it would 
probably extenuate a homicide to manslaughter, 
upon the same principle with the case stated by 
Lord Hale, that if A riding on the road, B had 
whipped his horse out of the track, and then A 
had alighted and killed B. These offences are 
usually committed by men of dissolute habits, 
hanging loose upon society, who, being repelled 
from association with well-disposed citizens, take 
refuge in the company of colored persons and 
staves, whom they deprave by their example, embold- 
en by their familiarity, and then beat, under the 
expectation that a slave dare not resent a blow from 
a white man. If such offences may be committed 
with impunity, the public peace will not only be 
rendered extremely insecure, but the value of slave 
property must be much impaired, for the offenders 
can seldom make any reparation in damages. 
Nor is it necessary, in any case, that a person 
who has received an injury, real or imaginary, 
froiu a slave, should carve out his own justice ; 



for the law has made ample and summary pro- 
vision for the punishment of all trivial offences com- 
mitted by slaves, by carrying them be- 
fore a justice, who is authorized to j Rev code, 
pass sentence for their being publicly 448. 

whipped. This provision, while it 
excludes the necessity of private vengeance, would 
seem to forbid its legality, since it effectually pro- 
tects all persons from the insolence of slaves, even 
where their masters are unwilling to correct them 
upon complaint being made. The common law 
has often been called into efficient operation, for 
the punishment of public cruelty inflicted -upon 
animals, for needless and wanton barbarity exer- 
cised even by masters upon their slaves, and for 
various violations of decency, morals, and comfort. 
Reason and analogy seem to require that a human 
being, although the subject of property, should be 
so far protected as the public might be injured 
through him. 

For all purposes necessary to enforce the obe- 
dience of the slave, and to render him useful as 
property, the law secures to the master a com- 
plete authority over him, and it will not lightly 
interfere with the relation thus established. It is 
a more effectual guarantee of his right of property, 
when the slave is protected from wanton abuse from 
those who have no power over him ; for it cannot be 
disputed that a slave is rendered less capable of 
performing his master's service when he finds 
himself exposed by the law to the capricious vio- 
lence of every turbulent man in the community. 

If this is not a scrupulous disclaimer of 
all humane intention in the decision, as far 
as the slave is concerned, and an explicit 
declaration that he is protected only out of 
regard to the comfort of the community, and 
his property value to his master, it is difficult 
to see how such a declaration could be made. 
After all this cool-blooded course of remark, 
it is somewhat curious to come upon the fol- 
lowing certainly most unexpected declaration, 
which occurs in the very next paragraph : 

Mitigated as slavery is by the humanity of oirr 
taws, the refinement of manners, and by pxddic 
opinion, which revolts at every instance of cruelty 
towards them, it would be an anomaly in the sys- 
tem of police which affects them, if the offenco 
stated in the verdict were not indictable. - 

The reader will please to notice that this 
remarkable declaration is made of the State 
of North Carolina. We shall have occa- 
sion again to refer to it by and by, when 
we extract from the statute-book of North 
Carolina some specimens of these humane 
laws. 

In the same spirit it is decided, under the 
law of Louisiana, that if an individual in- 
jures another's slave so as to make him en- 
tirely useless, and the owner recovers from 
him the full value of the slave, the slave by 
that act becomes thenceforth the Jourdain ^ 
property of the person who in- ration, July 

f r , , J . * i • • i A' term, 1818. 5 

J ured him. A decision tO this Martin's Louis. 

effect is given in Wheeler's Law ltep - 615> 



74 



KEY' TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



of Slavery, p. 249. A woman sued for an in- 
jury done to her slave by the slave of the de- 
fendant. The injury was such as to render 
him entirely useless, his only eye being put 
out. The parish court decreed that she should 
recover twelve hundred dollars, that the de- 
fendant should pay a further sum of twenty- 
five dollars a month from the time of the 
injury; also the physician's bill, and two 
hundred dollars for the sustenance of the 
slave during his life, and that ho should 
remain forever in the possession of his mis- 
tress. 

The case was appealed. The judge re- 
versed the decision, and delivered the slave 
into the possession of the man whose slave 
had committed the outrage. In the course 
of the decision, the judge remarks, with 
that calm legal explicitness for which many 
decisions of this kind are remarkable, that 

The principle of humanity, which would lead 
us to suppose that the mistress, whom he had long 
served, would treat her miserahle Wind slave with 
more kindness than the defendant, to whom the 
judgment ought to transfer him, cannot be taken 
into consideration in deciding this case. 

T 4 1Q , Another case, reported in Wheel- 
jan. term, is-28. K r\r> l l 
QMartii, La. er s Law, page 198, the author 

ep ' thus summarily abridges. It is 

Dorothee v. Coquillon et al. A young girl, 
by will of her mistress, was to have her free- 
dom at twenty -one ; and it was required by 
the will that in the mean time she should be 
educated in such a manner as to enable her 
to earn her living when free, her services 
in the mean time being bequeathed to the 
daughter of the defendant. Her mother (a 
free woman) entered complaint that no care 
was taken of the child's education, and that 
she was cruelly treated. The prayer of the 
petition was that the child be declared free 
at twenty-one, and in the mean time hired 
out by the sheriff. The suit was decided 
against the mother, on this ground, — that 
she could not sue for her daughter in a 
case where the daughter could not sue for 
herself were she of age, — ■ the object of the 
suit being relief from ill-treatment during 
the time of her slavery, which a slave 
cannot sue for. 

Jan. term, WW. Observe, now, the^ following 
4 ircord'aRep. case of Jennings v. Fundeberg. 

161. Wheeler's _ T . ° , . & 

Law cf Slavery, It seems Jennings brings an ac- 
v ' tion of trespass against Funde- 

berg for killing his slave. The case was 
thus : Fundeberg with others, being out 
hunting runaway negroes, surprised them in 
their camp, and, as the report says, "fired 
his gun toivards them as they were run- 



ning away, to induce them to stop." One 
of them, being shot through the head, was 
thus induced to stop, — and the master of 
the boy brought action for trespass against 
the firer for killing his slave. 

The decision of the inferior court was as 
follows : 

The court " thought the killing acciden- 
tal, and that the defendant ought not to be 
made answerable as a trespasser." * * * * 
" When one is lawfully interfering with the 
property of another, and accidentally de- 
stroys it, he is no trespasser, and ought 
not to be answerable for the value of the prop- 
erty. In this case, the defendant was en- 
gaged in a lawful and meritorious service, 
and if he really fired his gun in the manner 
stated it was an allowable act." 

The superior judge reversed the decision, 
on the ground that in dealing with another 
person's property one is responsible for any 
injury which he could have avoided by any 
degree of circumspection. "The firing 
.... was rasJi and incautious." 

Does not the whole spirit of this discus- 
sion speak for itself? 

r, l , x1 • Jan. T. 1827. 4 

bee also the very next case in M'Cord's Reo- 
Wheeler's Law. Richardson v. 156 - 
Dukes, p. 202. 

Trespass for killing the plaintiff's slave. It 
appeared the slave was stealing potatoes from a 
bank near the defendant's house. The defendant 
fired upon him with a gun loaded with buckshot, 
and killed him. The jury found a verdict for 
plaintiff for one dollar. Motion for a new trial. 

The Court. Nott J. held, there must be a 
new trial ; that the jury ought to have given the 
plaintiff the value of the slave. That if the jury 
were of opinion the slave was of bad character, 
some deduction from the usual price ought to be 
made, but the plaintiff was certainly entitled to 
his actual damage for killing his slave. Where 
property is in question, the value of the article, 
as nearly as it can be ascertained, furnishes a rule 
from which they are not at liberty to depart. 

It seems that the value of this unfortunate 
piece of property was somewhat reduced 
from the circumstance of his " stealing pota- 
toes." Doubtless he had his own best rea- 
sons for this ; so, at least, we should infer 
from the following remark, which wheeler's Law 
occurs in one of the reasonings °f Slavery, m 
of Judge Taylor, of N. Carolina. 

" The act of 1786 (Iredell's Revisal, p. 588) 
does, in the preamble, recognize the fact, that 
many persons, by cruel treatment to their slai-cs, 
cause them to commit crimes for which they are 
executed. * * The cruel treatment here al- 
luded to must consist in withholding from them the 
necessaries of life; and the crimes thus resulting 
are such as are calculated to furnish them with food 
and raiment" 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



75 



Perhaps u stealing potatoes " in this case 
was one of the class of crimes alluded to. 
■\vhitseii v. Again we have the following 

Earnest & Par- ° ° 

ker. Wheeler, Case : 
p. 202. 

The defendants went to the plantation of Mrs. 
Witsell for the purpose of hunting for runaway 
negroes ; there being many in the neighborhood , 
and the place in considerable alarm. As they 
approached the house with loaded guns, a negro 
ran from the house, or near the house, towards a 
swamp, when they fired and killed him. 

The judge charged the jury, that such cir- 
cumstances might exist, by the excitement and 
alarm of the neighborhood, as to authorize the 
killing of a negro without the sanction of a magis- 
trate. 

This decision was reversed in the Superior 
Court, in the following language : 

By the statute of 1740, any white man may 
apprehend and moderately correct any slave who 
may be found out of the plantation at which he 
is employed, and if the slave assaults the white 
person , he may be killed ; but a slave who is merely 
flying away cannot be killed. Nor can the de- 
fendants be justified by common law, if we consider 
the negro as a person; for they were not clothed 
with the authority of the law to apprehend him 
as a felon, and without such authority he could 
not be killed. 

If we consider the negro a person, 
says the judge ; and, from Ins decision in the 
case, he evidently intimates that he has a 
strong leaning to this opinion, though it has 
been contested by so many eminent legal 
authorities that he puts forth his sentiment 
modestly, and in an hypothetical form. The 
reader, perhaps, will need to be informed 
that the question whether the slave is to be 
considered a person or a human being in any 
respect has been extensively and ably argued 
on both sides in legal courts, and it may be 
a comfort to know that the balance of legal 
opinion inclines in favor of the slave. Judge 
Clarke, of Mississippi, is quite clear on the 
point, and argues very ably and earnestly, 
though, as he confesses, against very respect- 
able legal authorities, that the slave is a 
person, — that he is a reasonable creature. 
Tr , . The reasoning occurs in the case 

Wheeler, p. „,,.?.. T 

252. State oi Mississippi v. Jones, and 

JuneT.,1820. . ,, c ,. r A i-.' 

walker's is worthy ot attention as a literary 

Rep. 83. curiosity. 

It seems that a case of murder of a slave 
had been clearly made out and proved in the 
lower court, and that judgment was arrested 
and the case appealed on the ground wheth- 
er, in that state, murder could be committed 
on a slave. Judge Clarke thus ably and 
earnestly argues : 

The question in this case is, wh'ether murder 
can be committed on a slave. Because individuals 



may have been deprived of many of their rights by 
society, it does not follow, that they have been 
deprived of all their rights. In some respects, 
slaves may be considered as chattels ; but in others, 
they are regarded as men. The law views them 
as capable of committing crimes. This can only 
be upon the principle, that they are men and ra- 
tional beings. The Roman law has been much 
relied on by the counsel of the defendant. Thai 
law was confined to the Roman empire, giving the 
power of life and death over captives in war, as 
slaves ; but it no more extended here, than the sim- 
ilar power given to parents over the lives of their 
children. Much stress has al3o been laid by the 
defendant's counsel on the case cited from Tay- 
lor's Reports, decided in North Carolina ; yet, in 
that case, two judges against one were of opinion, 
that killing a slave was murder. Judge Hall, who 
delivered the dissenting opinion in the above ease, 
based his conclusions, as we conceive, upon erro- 
neous principles, by considering the laws of Rome 
applicable here. His inference, alio, that a per- 
son cannot be condemned capitally, because he 
may be liable in a civil action, is not sustained by 
reason or authority, but appears to us to be in 
direct opposition to both. At a very early period 
in Virginia, the power of life OTer slaves was given 
by statute ; but Tucker observes, that as soon as 
these statutes were repealed, it was at once con- 
sidered by their courts that the killing of a slave 
might be murder. Commonwealth v. Dolly Chap- 
man : indictment for maliciously stabbing a slave, 
under a statute. It has been determined in 
Virginia that slaves are persons. In the con- 
stitution of the United States, slaves aTe ex- 
pressly designated as " persons." In this state 
the legislature have considered slaves as rea- 
sonable and accountable beings ; and it would be 
a stigma upon the character of the state, and a 
reproach to the administration of justice, if the 
life of a slave could be taken with impunity, or if 
he could be murdered in cold blood, without sub- 
jecting the offender to the highest penalty known 
to the criminal jurisprudence of the country. Has 
the slave no rights, because he is deprived of his 
freedom? He is still a human being, and pos- 
sesses all those rights of which he is not deprived 
by the positive provisions of the law; but in vain 
shall we look for any law passed by the enlight- 
ened and philanthropic legislature of this state, 
giving even to the master, much less to a stranger, 
power over the life of a slave. Such a statute 
would be worthy the age of Draco or Caligula, 
and would be condemned by the unanimous voice 
of the people of this state, where even cruelty to 
slaves, much [more] the taking away of life, meets 
with universal reprobation. By the provisions of 
our law, a slave may commit murder, and be pun- 
ished with death ; why, then, is it not murder to 
kill a slave 1 Can a mere chattel commit murder, 
and be subject to punishment ? 

The right of the master exists not by force of the 
law of nature or nations, but by virtue only of the 
positive law of the state; and although that gives to 
the master the right to command the services of 
the slave, requiring the master to feed and clothe 
the slave from infancy till death, yet it gives the 
master no right to take the life of the slave ; and, 
if the offence be not murder, it is not a crime, 
and subjects the offender to no punishment. 

The taking away the life of a reasonable crea- 



VG 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



ture, under the king's peace, with malice afore- 
thought, express or implied, is murder at common 
law. Is not a slave a reasonable creature? — is he 
not a human being ? And the meaning of this 
phrase, reasonable creature, is, a human being. 
For the killing a lunatic, an idiot, or even a child 
unborn, is murder, as much as the killing a phi- 
losopher ; and has not the slave as much reason as 
a lunatic, an idiot, or an unborn child? 

Thus triumphantly, in this nineteenth cen- 
tury of the Christian era and in the State 
of Mississippi, has it been made to appear 
that the slave is a reasonable creature, — a 
human being ! 

What sort of system, what sort of a pub- 
lic sentiment, was that which made this 
argument necessary ? 

And let us look at some of the admissions 
of this argument with regard to the nature 
of slavery. According to the judge, it is 
depriving human beings of many of their 
rights. Thus he says: " Because individ- 
uals may have been deprived of many of 
their rights by society, it does not follow 
that they have been deprived of all their 
rights." Again, he says of the slave : " He 
is still a human being, and possesses all 
those rights of which he is not deprived by 
the positive provisions of the law." Here 
he admits that the provisions of law deprive 
the slave of natural rights. Again he says : 
" The right of the master exists not by force 
of the law of nature or of nations, but by 
virtue only of the positive law of the state." 
According to the decision of this judge, 
therefore, slavery exists by the same right 
that robbery or oppression of any kind does, 
— the right of ability. A gang of robbers 
associated into a society have rights over 
all the neighboring property that they can 
acquire, of precisely the same kind. 

With the same unconscious serenity does 
the law apply that principle of force and 
robbery which is the essence of slavery, and 
show how far the master may proceed in 
appropriating another human being as his 
property. 

The question arises, May a master give a 
wheeler, p. 28. woman to one person, and her 
I'm ui'i! u' .'■' unborn children, to another one? 
Spring t. 1823. Let us hear the case argued. 

a Uttle'a Rep. „„ ,, , i . j 

*275. The unfortunate mother selected 
as the test point of this interesting legal 
principle comes to our view in the will of 
one Samuel Marksbury, under the style 
and denomination of " my negro wench 
Pen." Said Samuel states in his will that, 
for the eood will and love he hears to his own 
children, he gives said negro wench .Pen to 
Son Samuel, and all her future increase to 



daughter Rachael. When daughter Rachael, 
therefore, marries, her husband sets up a 
claim for this increase, — as it is stated, 
quite off-hand, that the "wench had several 
children." Here comes a beautifully inter- 
esting case, quite stimulating to legal acu- 
men. Inferior court decides that Samuel 
Marksbury could not have given away un- 
born children on the strength of the legal 
maxim, "Nemo dat quod non habet" — 
i. e., " Nobody can give what he has not 
got," — which certainly one should think 
sensible and satisfactory enough. The case, 
however, is appealed, and reversed in the 
superior court; and now let us hear the 
reasoning. 

The judge acknowledges the force of the 
maxim above quoted, — says, as one would 
think any man might say, that it is quite a 
correct maxim, — the only difficulty being 
that it does not at all apply to the present 
case. Let us hear him : 

He who is the absolute owner of a thing owns 
all its faculties for profit or increase ; and he 
may, no doubt, grant the profits or increase, as 
well as the thing itself. Thus, it is every day's 
practice to grant the future rents or profits of real 
estate ; and it is held that a man may grant the 
wool of a flock of sheep for years. 

See also p. 33, Fanny v. Bryant, 4 J. J. 
Marshall's Rep., 368. In this almost pre- 
cisely the same language is used. If the 
reader will proceed, he will find also this 
principle applied with equal clearness to the 
hiring, selling, mortgaging of unborn chil- 
dren ; and the perfect legal nonchalance of 
these discussions is only comparable to run- 
ning a dissecting-knife through the course 
of all the heart-strings of a living subject, 
for the purpose of demonstrating the laws 
of nervous contraction. 

Judge Stroud, in his sketch of the slave- 
laws, page 99, lays down for proof the fol- 
lowing assertion : That the penal codes of 
the slave states bear much more severely on 
slaves than on white persons. He intro- 
duces his consideration of this proposition 
by the following humane and sensible re- 
marks : 

A being, ignorant of letters, unenlightened by 
religion, and deriving but little instruction from 
good example, cannot be supposed to have right 

conceptions as to the nature and extent of moral 
or political obligations. This remark, with but a 
slight qualification, is applicable to the condition 
of the slave. It has been just shown that the 
benefits of education are not conferred upon him, 
while his chance of acquiring a knowledge of the 
precepts of the gospel is so remote as scarcely to 
be appreciated, lie may be regarded, therefore 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



77 



as almost without the capacity to comprehend 
the force of laws ; and, on this account, such as 
are designed for his government should be recom- 
mended by their simplicity and mildness. 

His condition suggests another motive for 
tenderness on his behalf in these particulars. 
He is unable to read, and holding little or no com- 
munication with those who are better informed 
than himself; how is he to become acquainted 
with the fact that a law for his observance has 
been made ? To exact obedience to a law which 
has not been promulgated, — which is unknown 
to the subject of it, — has ever been deemed most 
unjust and tyrannical. The reign of Caligula, 
were it obnoxious to no other reproach than this, 
would never cease to be remembered with abhor- 
rence. 

The lawgivers of the slaveholding states seem, 
in the formation of their penal codes, to have 
been uninfluenced oy these claims of the slave 
upon their compassionate consideration. The 
hardened convict moves their sympathy, and is 
to be taught the laws before he is expected to 
obey them ; yet the guiltless slave is subjected to 
an extensive system of cruel enactments, of no 
part of which, probably, has he ever heard. 

Parts of this system apply to the slave ex- 
clusively, and for every infraction a large retribu- 
tion is demanded ; while, with respect to offences 
for which whites as well as slaves are amenable, 
punishments of much greater severity are inflicted 
upon the latter than upon the former. 

This heavy charge of Judge Stroud is 
sustained by twenty pages of proof, showing 
the very great disproportion between the 
number of offences made capital for slaves, 
and those that are so for whites. Con- 
cerning this, we find the following cool re- 
mark in Wheeler's Law of Slavery, page 
222, note. 

Much has been said of the disparity of pun- 
ishment between the white inhabitants and the 
slaves and negroes of the same state ; that slaves 
are punished with much more severity, for the 
commission of similar crimes, by white persons, 
than the latter. The charge is undoubtedly true 
to a considerable extent. It must be remembered 
that the primary object of the enactment of penal 
laws, is the protection and security of those who 
make them. The slave has no agency in making 
them. He is indeed one cause of the apprehended 
evils to the other class, which those laws are ex- 
pected to remedy. That he should be held ame- 
nable for a violation of those rules established for 
the security of the other, is the natural result of 
the state in which he is placed. And the sever- 
ity of those rules will always bear a relation to 
that danger, real or ideal, of the other class. 

It has been so among all nations, and will 
ever continue to be so, while the disparity be- 
tween bond and free remains. 

A striking example of a legal decision 

to this purport is given ir Wheeler's 

The state v. Law of Slavery, page 224. The 

lenn, 1829. '2 ca se> apart from legal tech- 

kSFZSL Realities, may be thus briefly 

fiep. 203. stated : 



The defendant, Mann, had hired a slave- 
woman for a year. During this time the 
slave committed some slight offence, for which 
the defendant undertook to chastise her. 
While in the act of doing so the slave ran 
off, whereat he shot at and wounded her. The 
judge in the inferior court charged the jury 
that if they believed the punishment was 
cruel and unwarrantable, and disproportioned 
to the offence, in law the defendant was 
guilty, as he had only a special property 
in the slave. The jury finding evidence that 
the punishment had been cruel, unwarrant- 
able and disproportioned to the offence, 
found verdict against the defendant. But on 
what ground ? — Because, according to the 
law of North Carolina, cruel, unwarrantable, 
disproportionate punishment of a slave from 
a master, is an indictable offence ? No. They 
decided against the defendant, not because 
the punishment was cruel and unwarrant- 
able, but because he was not the person who 
had the right to inflict it, ' ' as he had only 
a special right of property in the slave. ,} 

The defendant appealed to a higher court, 
and the decision was reversed, on the ground 
that the hirer has for the time being all the 
rights of the master. The remarks of Judge 
Ruffin are so characteristic, and so strongly 
express the conflict between the feelings of 
the humane judge and the logical necessity 
of a strict interpreter of slave-law, that we 
shall quote largely from it. One cannot 
but admire the unflinching calmness with 
which a man, evidently possessed of honor- 
able and humane feelings, walks through the 
most extreme and terrible results and con- 
clusions, in obedience to the laws of legal 
truth. Thus he says : 

A judge cannot but lament, when such cases 
as the present are brought into judgment. It is 
impossible that the reasons on which they go can 
be appreciated, but where institutions similar to 
our own exist, and are thoroughly understood. 
The struggle, too, in the judge's own breast, be- 
tween the feelings of the man and the duty of the 
magistrate, is a severe one, presenting strong 
temptation to put aside such questions, if it be 
possible. It is useless, however, to complain of 
things inherent in our political state. And it is 
criminal in a court to avoid any responsibility 
which the laws impose. With whatever reluc- 
tance, therefore, it is done, the court is compelled 
to express an opinion upon the extent of the do- 
minion of the master over the slave in North Car- 
olina. The indictment charges a battery on Lydia, 

a slave of Elizabeth Jones The inquiry 

here is, whether a cruel and unreasonable battery 
on a slave by the hirer is indictable. The judge 
below instructed the jury that it is. He seems to 
have put it on the ground, that the defendant had 
but a special property. Our laws uniformly treat 
the master, or other person having the possession 



78 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



and command of the slave, as entitled to the same 
extent of authority. The object is the same, the 
service of the slave ; and the same powers must be 
confided. In a criminal proceeding, and, indeed, 
in reference to all other persons but the general 
owner, the hirer and possessor of the slave, in rela- 
tion to both rights and duties, is, for the time being, 
the owner But, upon the general ques- 
tion, whether the owner is answerable criminal- 
iter, for a battery upon his own slave, or other 
exercise of authority of force, not forbidden by 
statute, the court entertains but little doubt. 
That he i3 so liable, has never been decided ; nor, 
as far as is known, been hitherto contended. 
There has been no prosecution of the sort. The 
established habits and uniform practice of the 
country, in this respect, is the best evidence of the 
portion of power deemed by the whole community 
requisite to the preservation of the master's do- 
minion. If we thought differently, we could not 
set our notions in array against the judgment of 
everybody else, and say that this or that authority 
may be safely lopped off. This has indeed been 
assimilated at the bar to the other domestic rela- 
tions : and arguments drawn from the well-estab- 
lished principles, which confer and restrain the 
authority of the parent over the child, the tutor 
over the pupil, the master over the apprentice, 
have been pressed on us. 

The court does not recognize their application. 
There is no likeness between the cases. They are 
in opposition to each other, and there is an im- 
passable gulf between them. The difference is 
that which exists between freedom and slavery ; 
and a greater cannot be imagined. In the one, the 
end in view is the happiness of the youth born to 
equal rights with that governor on whom the duty 
devolves of training the young to usefulness, in a 
station which he is afterwards to assume among 
freemen. To such an end, and with such a subject, 
moral and intellectual instruction seem the natural 
means ; and, for the most part, they are found to 
suffice. Moderate force is superadded only to 
make the others effectual. If that fail, it is bet- 
ter to leave the party to his own headstrong pas- 
sions, and the ultimate correction of the law, than 
to allow it to be immoderately inflicted by a pri- 
vate person. "With slavery it is far otherwise. 
The end is the profit of the master, his security 
and the public safety ; the subject, one doomed, 
in his own person and his posterity, to live with- 
out knowledge, and without the capacity to make 
anything his own, and to toil that another may 
reap the fruits. What moral considerations shall 
be addressed to such a being, to convince him 
what it is impossible but that the most stupid 
must feel and know can never be true, — that he 
is thus to Labor upon a principle of natural duty, 
or for the sake of his own personal happiness ? 
Such services can only he expected from one who 
has no will of Ids own ; who surrenders his will 
in implicit obedience to that of another. Such 
obedience is the consequence only of uncontrolled 
authority over the body. There is nothing else 
which can operate to produce the effect. The 

POWER OP THE MASTER MUST BE ABSOLUTE, TO RENDER 

the SUBMISSION or the slave PKKIECT. I most freely 
confess my sense of the harshness of this propo- 
sition. I feel it as deeply as any man can. And, 
as a principle of moral right, every person in his 
retirement must repudiate it. But, in the actual 
condition of things, it must be so. There is no 
remedy. This discipline belongs to the state of 



slavery. They cannot be disunited without abro- 
gating at once the rights of the master, and ab- 
solving the slave from his subjection. It consti- 
tutes the curse of slavery to both the bond and 
the free portions of our population. But it is 
inherent in the relation of master and slave. That 
there may be particular instances of cruelty and 
deliberate barbarity, where in conscience the law 
might properly interfere, is most probable. The 
difficulty is to determine where a court may prop- 
erly begin. Merely in the abstract, it may well 
be asked which power of the master accords with 
right. The answer will probably sweep away all 
of them. But we cannot look at the matter in 
that light. The truth is that we are forbidden to 
enter upon a train of general reasoning on the 
subject. We cannot allow the right of the mas- 
ter to be brought into discussion in the courts of 
justice. The slave, to remain a slave, must be 
made sensible that there is no appeal from his 
master ; that his power is, in no instance, usurped, 
but is conferred by the laws of man, at least, if 
not by the law of God. The danger would be 
great, indeed, if the tribunals of justice should be 
called on to graduate the punishment appropriate 
to every temper and every dereliction of menial 
duty. 

No man can anticipate the many and aggra- 
vated provocations of the master which the slave 
would be constantly stimulated by his own pas- 
sions, or the instigation of others, to give ; or 
the consequent wrath of the master, prompting 
him to bloody vengeance upon the turbulent 
traitor ; a vengeance generally practised with impu- 
nity, by reason of its privacy. The court, therefore, 
disclaims the power of changing the relation in 
which these parts of our people stand to each 
other. 

# # # # * 

I repeat, that I would gladly have avoided 
this ungrateful question. But, being brought to 
it, the court is compelled to declare that while 
slavery exists amongst us in its present state, or 
until it shall seem fit to the legislature to interpose 
express enactments to the contrary, it will he the 
imperative duty of the judges to recognize the full 
dominion of the owner over the slave, except where 
the exercise of it is forbidden by statute. 

And this we do upon the ground that this do- 
minion is essential to the value of slaves as property, 
to the security of the master and the public tranquil- 
lity, greatly dependent upon their subordination; 
and, in fine, as most effectually securing the gen- 
eral protection and comfort of the slaves them- 
selves. Judgment below reversed ; and judgment 
entered for the defendant. 

No one can read this decision, so fine 
and clear in expression, so dignified and 
solemn in its earnestness, and so dreadful 
in its results, without feeling at once deep 
respect for the man and horror for the sys- 
tem. The man, judging him from this 
short specimen, which is all the author 
knows,* has one of that high order of minds, 
which looks straight through all verbiage 
and sophistry to the heart of every subject 
which it encounters. He has, too, that noble 

* Moro recently the. author has met with a passage in a 
North Carolina newspaper, containing some further par- 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



79 



scorn of dissimulation, that straightforward 
determination not to call a bad thing by 
a good name, even when most popular and 
reputable and legal, which it is to be wished 
could be more frequently seen, both in our 
Northern and Southern States. There is 
but one sole regret ; and that is that such a 
man, with such a mind, should have been 
merely an expositor, and not a reformer of 
law. 



CHAPTER III. 

SOUTHER V. THE COMMONWEALTH — THE 
NE PLUS ULTRA OF LEGAL HUMANITY. 

" Yet in the face of such laws and decisions as these ! 
Mrs. Stowe, &c." — Courier 8f Enquirer. 

The case of Souther v. the Common- 
wealth has been cited by the Courier $• 
Enquirer as a particularly favorable speci- 



ticulars of the life of Judge Ruffin, which have proved in- 
teresting to her, and may also to the reader. 

From the Raleigh (iV. C.) Register. 

Resignation of the Chief Justice of the State of 

North Carolina. 

We publish below the letter of Chief Justice Ruffin, of 
the Supreme Court, resigning his seat on the bench. 

This act takes us, and no less will it take the state, by 
surprise. The public are not prepared for it ; and we 
doubt not there will scarcely be an exception to the deep 
and general regret which will be felt throughout the state. 
Judge Ruffin's great and unsurpassed legal learning, his 
untiring industry, the ease with which he mastered the 
details and comprehended the whole of the most compli- 
cated cases, were the admiration of the bar; and it has 
been a common saying of the ablest lawyers of the state, 
for a long time past, that his place on tho bench could be 
supplied by no other than himself. 

He is now, as we learn, in the sixty-fifth year of his age, 
in full possession of his usual excellent health, unaffected, 
so far as we can discover, in his natural vigor and strength, 
and certainly without any symptom of mental decay. 
Forty-five years ago he commenced the practice of the 
law. He has been on the bench twenty-eight years, of 
which time he has been one of the Supreme Court twenty- 
three years. Luring this long public career he has, in a 
pecuniary point of view, sacrificed many thousands ; for 
there has been no time of it in which he might not, with per- 
fect ease, have doubled, by practice, the amount of his 
salary as judge. 

M To the Honorable the General Assembly of North Carolina, 
how in session. 

" Gentlemen : I desire to retire to the walks of private 
life, and therefore pray your honorable body to accept the 
resignation of my place on the bench of the Supreme 
'Court. In surrendering this trust, I would wish to express 
my grattful sense of the confidence and honors so often 
and so long bestowed on me by the General Assembly. 
But I have no language to do it suitably. I am very sen- 
sible that they were far beyond my deserts, and that I 
have made an insufficient return of the service. Yet I 
can truly aver that, to the best of my ability, I have ad- 
ministered tho law as I understood it, and to the ends of 
suppressing crime and wrong, and upholding virtue, truth 
and right; aiming to give confidence to honest men, and 
to confirm in all good citizens love for our country, and a 
pure trust in her law and magistrates. 

" In my place I hope I have contributed to these ends; 
and I firmly believe that our laws will, as heretofore, be 
executed, and our people happy in the administration of 
justice, honest and contented, as long as they keep, and 
only so long as they keep, the independent and sound ju- 
diciary now established in the constitution; which, with 



men of judicial proceedings under the slave- 
code, with the following remark : 

And yet, in the face of such laws and decisions 
as these, Mrs. Stowe winds up a long series of 
cruelties upon her other black personages, by 
causing her faultless hero, Tom, to be literally 
whipped to death in Louisiana, by his master, Le- 
gree ; and these acts, which the laws make crimi- 
nal, and punish as such, she sets forth in tho most 
repulsive colors, to illustrate the institution of 
slavery ! 

By the above language the author was 
led into the supposition that this case had 
been conducted in a manner so creditable to 
the feelings of our common humanity as to 
present a fairer side of criminal jurispru- 
dence in this respect. She accordingly 
took the pains to procure a report of the 
case, designing to publish it as an offset to 
the many barbarities which research into 
this branch of the subject obliges one to un- 
fold. A legal gentleman has copied the 
case from Grattan's Reports, and it is here 
given. If the reader is astounded at it, he 
cannot be more so than was the writer. 

Souther v. The Commonirealth. 7 Grattan, 673, 
1851. 

The killing of a slave by his master and owner, by wilful 
and excessive whipping, is murder in the first degree: 
though it may not have been the purpose and intention 
of the master and owner to kill the slave. 

Simeon Souther was indicted at the October 
Term, 1850, of the Circuit Court for the County of 
Hanover, for the murder of his own slave. The 
indictment contained fifteen counts, in which the 
various modes of punishment and torture by which 
the homicide was charged to have been committed 
were stated singly, and in various combinations, 
The fifteenth count unites them all : and, as the 
court certifies that the indictment was sustained 
by the evidence, the giving the facts stated in that 
count will show what was the charge against the 
prisoner, and what was the proof to sustain it. 

The count charged that on the 1st day of Sep- 
tember, 1849, the prisoner tied his negro slave, 
Sam, with ropes about his wrists, neck, body, 
legs and ankles, to a tree. That whilst so tied, 
the prisoner first whipped the slave with switches. 
That he next beat and cobbed the slave with a 
shingle, and compelled two of his slaves, a man 
and a woman, also to cob the deceased with the 
shingle. That whilst the deceased was so tied to 
the tree, the prisoner did strike, knock, kick, stamp 
and beat him upon various parts of his head, face 
and body ; that he applied fire to his body ; * * 
* * that he then washed his body witli warm 
water, in which pods of red pepper had been put 
and steeped ; and he compelled his two slaves 
aforesaid also to wash him with this same prepara- 
tion of warm water and red pepper. That after 
the tying, whipping, cobbing, striking, beating, 
knocking, kicking, stamping, wounding, bruising, 
lacerating, burning, washing and torturing, as 



all other blessings, I earnestly pray may bo perpetuated 
to the people of North Carolina. 

" I have tho honor to be, gentlemen, your most obliged 
and obedient servant, Thohas Rctpin. 

"Raleigh, November 10, 1852." 



80 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



aforesaid, the prisoner untied the deceased from 
the tree in such way as to throw him with vio- 
lence to the ground ; and he then and there did 
knock, kick, stamp and heat the deceased upon 
his head, temples, and various parts of his body. 
That the prisoner then had the deceased carried 
into a shed-room of his house, and there he com- 
pelled one of his slaves, in his presence, to con- 
fine the deceased's feet in stocks, by making his 
legs fast to a piece of timber, and to tie a rope 
about the neck of the deceased, and fasten it to 
a bed-post in the room, thereby strangling, chok- 
ing and suffocating the deceased. And that whilst 
the deceased was thus made fast in stocks as afore- 
said, the prisoner did kick, knock, stamp and beat 
him upon his head, face, breast, belly, sides, back 
and body ; and he again compelled his two slaves 
to apply lire to the body of the deceased, whilst he 
was so made fast as aforesaid. And the count 
charged that from these various modes of punish- 
ment and torture the slave Sam then and there died. 
It appeared that the prisoner commenced the pun- 
ishment of the deceased in the morning, and that it 
was continued throughout the day : and that the 
deceased died in the presence of the prisoner, and 
one of his slaves, and one of the witnesses, whilst 
the punishment was still progressing. 

Field J. delivered the opinion of the court. 

The prisoner was indicted and convicted of mur- 
der in the second degree, in the Circuit Court of 
Hanover, at its April term last past, and was 
sentenced to the penitentiary for five years, the 
period of time ascertained by the jury. The mur- 
der consisted in the killing of a negro man-slave 
by the name of Sam, the property of the prisoner, 
by cruel and excessive whipping and torture, in- 
flicted by Souther, aided by two of his other slaves, 
on the 1st day of September, 1849. The prisoner 
moved for a new trial, upon the ground that the 
offence, if any, amounted only to manslaughter. 
The motion for a new trial was overruled, and a 
bill of exceptions taken to the opinion of the court, 
setting forth the facts proved, or as many of 
them as were deemed material for the considera- 
tion of the application for a new trial. The bill 
of exception states : That the slave Sam, in the 
indictment mentioned, was the slave and property 
of the prisoner. That for the purpose of chas- 
tising the slave for the offence of getting drunk, 
and dealing as the slave confessed and alleged 
with Henry and Stone, two of the witnesses for the 
Commonwealth, he caused him to be tied and 
punished in the presence of the said witnesses, 
with the exception of slight whipping witli peach 
or apple-tree switches, before the said witnesses 
arrived at the scene after they were sent for by the 

Jirisoner (who were present by request from the de- 
fendant), and of several slaves of the prisoner, in 
the manner and by the means charged in the in- 
dictment; and the said slave died under and from 
the infliction of the said punishment, in the pres- 
ence of tin: prisoner, one of his slaves, and of one 
of the wi tm 'ssi's for the Commonwealth. But it did 
not appear that it was the design of the pris- 
oner to kill the said slave, unless such design be 
Sroperly inferable from the manner, means and 
uration of the punishment. And, on the contrary, 
it did appear that the prisoner frequ sntly declared, 
while the said slave was undergoing the punish- 
ment, that he believed the said slave was feigning, 
and pretending to be suffering and injured when 
he was not. The judge certifies that the slave 
Was punished in the manner and by the means 



charged in the indictment. The indictment con- 
tains fifteen counts, and sets forth a case of the 
most cruel and excessive whipping and torture.* 

It is believed that the records of criminal juris- 
prudence do not contain a case of more atrocious 
and wicked cruelty than was presented upon the 
trial of Souther ; and yet it has been gravely and 
earnestly contended here by his counsel that his 
offence amounts to manslaughter only. 

It has been contended by the counsel of the 
prisoner that a man cannot be indicted and prose- 
cuted for the cruel and excessive whipping of his 
own slave. That it is lawful for the master to 
chastise his slave, and that if death ensues from 
such chastisement, unless it was intended to pro 
duce death, it is like the case of homicide which 
is committed by a man in the performance of a 
lawful act, which is manslaughter only. It has 
been decided by this court in Turner's case, 5 
Rand, that the owner of a slave, for the malicious, 
cruel and excessive beating of his own slave, can- 
not be indicted ; yet it by no means follows, when 
such malicious, cruel and excessive beating results 
in death, though not intended and premeditated, 
that the beating is to be regarded as lawful for tlie 
purpose of reducing the crime to manslaughter, 
when the whipping is inflicted for the sole purpose 
of chastisement. It is the ■policy of the law, in respect 
to the relation of master and slave, and for the sake 
of sccwing proper subordination and obedience on the 
part of the slave, to protect the master from prosecu- 
tion in all such cases, even if the whipping and pun- 
ishment be malicious, cruel and excessive. But in so 
inflicting punishment for the sake of punishment, 
the owner of the slave acts at his peril ; and if 
death ensues in consequence of such punishment, 
the relation of master and slave affords no ground 
of excuse or palliation. The principles of the 
common law, in relation to homicide, apply to his 
case without qualification or exception ; and ac- 
cording to those principles, the act of the prisoner, 
in the case under consideration, amounted to mur- 
der. * * * The crime of the prisoner is not 
manslaughter, but murder in the first degree. 

On the case now presented there are some 
remarks to be made. 

This scene of torture, it seems, occupied 
about twelve hours. It occurred in the 
State of Virginia, in the County of Hanover. 
Two white men were witnesses to nearly the 
whole proceeding, and, so far as we can scCj 
made no effort to arouse the neighborhood, 
and bring in help to stop the outrage. What 
sort of an education, what habits of thought, 
does this presuppose in these men 1 

The case was brought to trial. It re- 



* The following is Judgo Field's statement of tlio pun- 
ishment: 

The negro was tied to a tree and whipped with switches. 
When Souther became fatigued with the labor of whip- 
ping, he called upon a negro man of bis, and made him 
cob Sam with a shinglo. Ho also made a negro woman of 
his help to cob him. And, after cobbing and whipping, ho 
applied fire to the body of the slave. * * * * lie 
then caused him to bo washed down with Lot water, in 
which pods of red popper had been stooped. The negro 
was also tied to a log and to the bed-post with ropes, which 
ohoked him, and ho was kicked and stamped by Southern 
This sort of punishment was continued and repeated until 
the negro died under its infliction. 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



81 



quires no ordinary nerve to read over the 
counts of this indictment. Nobody, one 
would suppose, could willingly read them 
twice. One would think that it would have 
laid a cold hand of horror on every heart ; 
— that the community would have risen, 
by an universal sentiment, to shake out 
the man, as Paul shook the viper from his 
hand. It seems, however, that they were 
quite self-possessed; that lawyers calmly 
sat, and examined, and cross-examined, on 
particulars known before only in the records 
of the Inquisition; that it N was "ably and 
earnestly argued ' ' by educated, intelligent, 
American men, that this catalogue of hor- 
rors did not amount to a murder ! and, in 
the cOol language of legal precision, that 
" the offence, if any, amounted to man- 
slaughter;" and that an American jury 
found that the offence was murder in the 
second degree. Any one who reads the 
indictment Avill certainly think that, if this 
be murder in the second degree, in Vir- 
ginia, one might earnestly pray to be mur- 
dered in the first degree, to begin with. 
H*ad Souther \valked up to the man, and 
shot him through the head with a pistol, 
before white witnesses, that would have been 
murder in theirs/ degree. As he preferred 
to spend twelve hours in killing him by 
torture, under the name of " chastisement,''' 
that, says the verdict, is murder in the 
second degree ; " because" says the bill of 
exceptions, with admirable coolness, " it did 
not appear that it was the design of the 
prisoner to kill the slave, unless such de- 
sign BE PROPERLY INFERABLE FROM THE 
MANNER, MEANS AND DURATION, OF THE 
PUNISHMENT. 

The bill evidently seems to have a leaning 
to the idea that twelve hours spent in beating, 
stamping, scalding, burning and mutilating 
a human being, might possibly be considered 
as presumption of something beyond the 
limits of lawful chastisement. So startling 
an opinion, however, is expressed cautiously, 
and with a becoming diffidence, and is bal- 
anced by the very striking fact, which is also 
quoted in this remarkable paper, that the 
prisoner frequently declared, while the slave 
was undergoing the punishment, that he be- 
lieved the slave was feigning and pretending 
to l»e suffering, when he was not. This 
view appears to have struck the court as 
eminently probable, — as going a long way 
to prove the propriety of Souther's inten- 
tions, making it at least extremely probable 
that only correction was intended. 

It seems, also, that Souther, so far from 
6 



being crushed by the united opinion of the 
community, found those to back him who 
considered five years in the penitentiary an 
unjust severity for his crime, and hence the 
bill of exceptions from which we have quoted, 
and the appeal to the Superior Court ; and 
hence the form in which the case stands 
in law-books, " Souther v. the Common- 
wealth." Souther evidently considers him- 
self an ill-used man, and it is in this character 
that he appears before the Superior Court. 
As yet there has been no particular 
overflow of humanity in the treatment of 
the case. The manner in which it has been 
discussed so far reminds one of nothing so 
much as of some discussions which the reader 
may have seen quoted from the records of 
the Inquisition, with regard to the propriety 
of roasting the feet of children who have not 
arrived at the age of thirteen years, with, a 
view to eliciting evidence. 

Let us now come to the decision of the 
Superior Court, which the editor of the 
Courier <§* Enquirer thinks so particularly 
enlightened and humane. Judge Field 
thinks that the case is a very atrocious one, 
and in this respect he seems to differ ma- 
terially from judge, jury and lawyers, of 
the court below. Furthermore, he doubts 
whether the annals of jurisprudence furnish 
a case of equal atrocity, wherein certainly 
he appears to be not far wrong; and he 
also states unequivocally the principle that 
killing a slave by torture under the name 
of correction is murder in the first degree ; 
and here too, certainly, everybody will 
think that he is also right ; the only wonder 
being that any man could ever have been 
called to express such an opinion, judicially. 
But he states, quite as unequivocally as 
Judge Ruffin, that awful principle of slave- 
laws, that the law cannot interfere with the 
muster for any amount of torture inflicted 
on his slave which does not result in death. 
The decision, if it establishes anything, es- 
tablishes this principle quite as strongly as 
it doys the other. Let us hear the words 
of the decision : 

It lias been decided by tins court, in Turner's 
case, that the o%ner of a slave, for the malicious, 
cruel and excessive beating of his own slave, cannot 
be indicted. * * * * * * 

// is the policy of the laiv, in respect to the relation 
of muster and slave, and for the sake of securing 
proper subordination and obedience on the part of the 
slaw, to protect lie master from prosecution in all 
such cases, vein if the whipping and punishment be 
malicious, cruel and excessive. 

What follows as a corollary from this 
remarkable declaration is this, — that if the 



82 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



victim of this twelve hours' torture had only 
possessed a little stronger constitution, and 
had not actually died under it, there is no 
law in Virginia by which Souther could 
even have been indicted for misdemeanor. 

If this is not filling out the measure of the 
language of St. Clare, that "he who goes 
the furthest and does the worst only uses 
within limits the power which the law gives 
him," h#w could this language be verified? 
Which is "the worst" death outright, or 
torture indefinitely prolonged ? This deci- 
sion, in so many words, gives every master 
the power of indefinite torture, and takes 
from him only the power of terminating the 
agony by merciful death. And this is the 
judicial decision which the Courier $• En- 
quirer cites as a perfectly convincing speci- 
men of legal humanity. It must be hoped 
that the editor never read the decision, else 
he never would have cited it. Of all who 
knock at the charnel-house of legal pre- 
cedents, with the hope of disinterring any 
evidence of humanity in the slave system, 
it may be said, in the awful words of the 
Hebrew poet : 

" He knoweth not that the dead are there, 

And that her guests are in the depths of hell." 

The upshot of this case was, that Souther, 
instead of getting off from his five years' 
imprisonment, got simply a judicial opinion 
from the Superior Court that he ought to 
be hung ; but he could not be tried over 
again, and, as we may infer from all the 
facts in the case that lie was a man of 
tolerably resolute nerves and not very ex- 
quisite sensibility, it is not likely that the 
opinion gave him any very serious uneasi- 
ness. He has probably made up his mind 
to get over his five years with what grace 
lie may. When he comes out, there is no 
law in Virginia to prevent his buying as 
many more negroes as he chooses, and going 
over the same scene with any one, of them 
at a future time, if only he profit by the 
information which has been so explicitly 
conveyed to him in this decision, that he 
must take care and stop his tortures short 
of the point of death, — a matter about 
which, as the history of the Inquisition 
shows, men, by careful practice, can be 
able to judge with considerable precision. 
Probably, also, the next time, he will not 
be so foolish as to send out and request the 
attendance of two white witnesses, even 
though they may be so complacently inter- 
ested in the proceedings as to spend the 
whole day in witnessing them without effort 
at prevention 



Slavery, as defined in American law, is 
no mo\'e capable of being regulated in its 
administration by principles of humanity, 
than the torture system of the Inquisition. 
Every act of humanity of every individual 
owner is an illogical result from the legal 
definition ; and the reason why the slave- 
code of America is more atrocious than any 
ever before exhibited under the sun, is that 
the Anglo-Saxon race are a more coldly and 
strictly logical race, and have an unflinching 
courage to meet the consequences of every 
premise which they lay down, and to work 
out an accursed principle, with mathemati- 
cal accuracy, to its most accursed results. 
The decisions in American law-books show 
nothing so much as this severe, unflinching 
accuracy of logic. It is often and evidently, 
not because judges are inhuman or partial, 
but because they are logical and truthful, 
that they announce from the bench, in the 
calmest manner, decisions which one would 
think might make the earth shudder, and 
the. sun turn pale. 

The French and the Spanish nations are, 
by constitution, more impulsive, passionate 
and poetic, than logical ; hence it will be 
found that while there may be more instances 
of individual barbarity, as might be expected 
among impulsive and passionate people, there 
is in their slave-code more exhibition of 
humanity. The code of the State of Louis- 
iana contains more really humane provisions. 
were there any means of enforcing them, 
than that of any other state in the Union. 

It is believed that there is no code of laws 
in the world which contains such a perfect 
cabinet crystallization of every tear and 
every drop of blood which can be wrung 
from humanity, so accurately, elegantly and 
scientifically arranged, as the slave-code of 
America. It is a case of elegant surgical 
instruments for the work of dissecting the 
living human heart; — every instrument 
wrought with exactest temper and polish, 
and adapted with exquisite care, and labelled 
with the name of the nerve.or artery or mus- 
cle which it is designed to sever. The instru- 
ments of the anatomist are instruments of 
earthly steel and wood, designed to operate 
at most on perishable and corruptible mat- 
ter; but these are instruments of keener 
temper, and more ethereal workmanship, de- 
signed in the most precise and scientific man- 
ner to DESTROY THE IMMORTAL SOUL, and 
carefully and gradually to reduce man from 
the high position of a free agent, a social, 
religious, accountable being, down to the con- 
dition of the brute, or of inanimate matter. 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



83 



CHAPTER IV. 

PROTECTIVE STATUTES. 

Apprentices protected. — Outlawry. — Melodrama of Prue 
in the Swamp. — Harry the Carpenter, a Romance of 
Real Life. 

But the question now occurs, Are there 
not protective statutes, the avowed object of 
which is the protection of the life and limb 
of the slave ? We answer, there are ; and 
these protective statutes are some of the 
most remarkable pieces of legislation extant. 

That they were dictated by a spirit of 
humanity, charity, which hopeth all things, 
would lead us to hope ; but no newspaper 
stories of bloody murders and shocking out- 
rages convey to the mind so dreadful a 
picture of the numbness of public sentiment 
caused by slavery as these so-called pro- 
tective statutes. The author copies the fol- 
lowing from the statutes of North Carolina. 
Section 3d of the act passed in 1798 runs 
thus : 

Whereas by another Act of the Assembly, passed 
in 1774, the killing of a slave, however wanton, 
cruel and deliberate, is only punishable in the first 
instance by imprisonment and paying the value 
thereof to the owner, which distinction of crimi- 
nality between the murder of a white person and one 
who is equally a human creature, but merely of a 
different complexion, is disgraceful to humanity, 

AND DEGRADING IN THE HIGHEST DEGREE TO THE LAWS 
AND PRINCIPLES OF A FREE, CHRISTIAN AND ENLIGHT- 
ENED country, Be it enacted, &c, That if any 
person shall hereafter be guilty of wilfully and 
maliciously killing a slave, such offender shall, 
upon the first conviction thereof, be adjudged 
guilty of murder, and shall suffer the same punish- 
ment as if he had killed a free man : Provided 
always, this act shall not extend to the person killing 
a slave outlawed by virtue of any Act of Assembly 
of this state, or to any slave in the act of resistance 
to his lawful owner or master, or to any slave dying 
under moderate correction.' 1 '' 

A law with a like proviso, except the 
outl.iwry clause, exists in Tennessee. See 
Caruthers and Nicholson" 1 s Compilation, 
1836, p. 670. 

The language of the constitution of Geor- 
gia, art. iv., sec. 12, is as follows : 

Any person who shall maliciously dismember 
or deprive a slave of life shall suffer such punish- 
ment as would be inflicted in case the like offence 
had been committed on a free white person, and 
on the like proof, except in case of insurrection 
by such slave, and unless such death should happen 
by accident in giving such slave moderate correction. 
—Cobb's Dig. 1851, p. 1125. 

Let now any Englishman or New Eng- 

' lander imagine that such laws with regard 

to apprentices had ever been proposed in 

Parliament or State Legislature under the 

head of protective acts; — laws which in 



so many words permit the killing of the 
subject in three cases, and those comprising 
all the acts which would generally occur 
under the law ; namely, if the slave resist, 
if he be outlawed, or if he die under moder- 
ate correction. 

What rule in the world will ever prove 
correction immoderate, if the fact that the 
subject dies under it is not held as proof? 
How many such "accidents" would have 
to happen in Old England or New England, 
before Parliament or Legislature would hear 
from such a protective law. 

" But," some one may ask, " what is the 
outlawry spoken of in .this act?" The 
question is pertinent, and must be answered. 
The author has copied the following from 
the Revised Statutes of North Carolina, 
chap, cxi, sec. 22. It may be remarked in 
passing that the preamble to this law presents 
rather a new view of slavery to those who 
have formed their ideas from certain pictures 
of blissful contentment and Arcadian repose, 
which have been much in vogue of late. 

Whereas, many times slaves run aivay and li< 
out, hid and lurking in swamps, woods, and other 
obscure places, killing cattle and hogs, and com- 
mitting other injuries to the inhabitants of this 
state ; in all such cases, upon intelligence of any 
slave or slaves lying out as aforesaid, any two 
justices of the peace for the county wherein such 
slave or slaves is or are supposed to lurk or do 
mischief, shall, and they are hereby empowered 
and required to issue proclamation against such 
slave or slaves (reciting his or their names, and 
the name or names of the owner or owners, if 
known), thereby requiring him or them, and every 
of them, forthwith to surrender him or themselves : 
and also to empower and require the sheriff of the 
said county to take such power with him as he 
shall think fit and necessary for going in searcli 
and pursuit of, and effectually apprehending, such 
outlying slave or slaves; which proclamation 
shall be published at the door of the court-house. 
and -at such other places as said justices shall 
direct. And if any slave or slaves against whom 
proclamation hath been thus issued stay out, and 
do not immediately return home, it shall be law- 
ful for any person or persons whatsoever to kill 
and destroy such slave or slaves by such ways anil 
means as he shall think fit, without accusation or 
impeachment of any crime for the same. 

What ways and means have been thought 
fit, in actual experience, for the destruction 
of the slave? What was done with the 
negro Mcintosh, in the streets of St. Louis, 
in open daylight, and endorsed at the next 
sitting of the Supreme Court of the state. 
as transcending the sphere of law, because 
it was "an act of the majority of her most 
respectable citizens"?* If these things 
are done in the green tree, what will be done 
in the dry ? If these things have once been 



*This man was burned alivo. 



84 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



done in the open streets of St. Louis, by "a 
majority of her most respectable citizens, " 
what will be done in the lonely swamps of 
North Carolina, by men of the stamp of 
Souther and Legree ? 

This passage of the Revised Statutes of 
North Carolina is more terribly suggestive 
to the imagination than any particulars into 
which the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin has 
thought fit to enter. Let us suppose a little 
melodrama quite possible to have occurred 
under this act of the legislature. Suppose 
some luckless Prue or Peg, as in the case we 
have just quoted, in State v. Mann, getting 
tired of the discipline of whipping, breaks 
from the overseer, clears the dogs, and gets 
into the swamp, and there " lies out," as 
the act above graphically says. The act 
which we are considering says that many 
slaves do tins, and doubtless they have their 
own best reasons for it. We all know what 
fascinating places to "lie out'' in these 
Southern swamps are. What with alliga- 
tors and moccasin snakes, mad and water, 
and poisonous vines, one would be apt to 
think the situation not particularly eligible ; 
but still, Prue " lies out" there. Perhaps in 
the night some husband or brother goes to 
see her, taking a boo;, or some animal of the 
plantation stock, which he has ventured his 
life in killing, that she may not perish with 
hunger. Master overseer walks up to master 
proprietor, and reports 'the accident ; master 
proprietor mounts his horse, and assembles 
to his aid two justices of the peace. 

In the intervals between drinking brandy 
and smoking cigars a proclamation is duly 
drawn up. summoning the contumacious Prue 
to surrender, and requiring sheriff of said 
county to take such power as he shall 
think fit to go in search and pursuit of said 
slave; which proclamation, for Prue's fur- 
ther enlightenment, is solemnly published at 
the door of the court-bouse, and "at such 
other places as said justices shall direct," * 
Let us suppose, now. that Prue, given over: 
to hardness of heart and blindness of mind, 
pays no attention to all these means of grace, ! 
put forth to draw her to the protective 
e'iadow of the patriarchal roof. Suppose, 
urther, as a final effort of long-suffering, 
and to leave her utterly withoul excuse, the 

* The old statute of 1711 hud some features still more 
edifying. That provides that said " proclamation shall 
!»■ published on a Sabbath day, at the door uf every church 
or chapel, <n', for want of such, al the place where divine 
service shall be performed in the said county, by the 
parish clerk or reader, immediately after divine Bervioe." 
Potter's Rcvisai, i. Hti. What a peculiar appropriateness 
there must bave^becn in this proclamation, particularly 
after a senium on the love of Christ, '•run exposition of 
the text " thou shalt luve thy neighbor as thyself ! " 



worthy magistrate rides forth in full force,— 
man, horse, dog and gun, — to the very verge 
of the swamp, and there proclaims aloud the 
merciful mandate. Suppose that, hearing 
the yelping of the dogs and the proclama- 
tion of the sheriff mingled together, and the 
shouts of Loker, Marks, Sambo and Quinibo, 
and other such posse, black and white, as a 
sheriff can generally summon on such a 
hunt, this very ignorant and contumacious 
Prue only runs deeper into the swamp, and 
continues obstinately "lying out," as afore- 
said ; — now she is by act of the assembly 
outlawed, and, in the astounding words of 
the act, "it shall be lawful for any person or 
persons whatsoever to kill and destroy her, 
by such ways and means as he shall think 
fit, without accusation or impeachment of 
any crime for the same." What awful pos- 
sibilities rise to the imagination under the 
fearfully suggestive clause " by such ways 
and means as he shall think jit ! " Such 
ways and means as ANY man shall think fit, 
of any character, of any degree of fiendish 
barbarity ! ! Such a permission to kill even 
a dog, by "any ways and means which any- 
body should think fit," never ought to stand 
on the law-books of a Christian nation ; and 
yet this stands against one bearing that 
same humanity which Jesus Christ bore,— 
against one, perhaps, who, though blinded, 
darkened and ignorant, he Avill not be 
ashamed to own, when he shall come in the 
glory of his Father, and all his holy angels 
with him ! 

That this law has not been a dead letter 
there is sufficient proof. In 18SG the 
following proclamation and advertisement 
appeared in the "Newbern (N. C.) Specta- 
tor:" 

State of North Carolina, Lenoir County. — - 
Whereas complaint hath been this day made to us, 
twoof the justices of the peace for the said county, 
by William P. Cobb, of Jones County, that two 
negro-slaves belonging to him, named Ben (com- 
monly known by the name of Ben Fox) and Rig- 
don, have absented themselves from their said 
master's service, and are lurking about in the 
Counties of Lenoir and Jones, committing acts of 
felon v ; these are, in the name of the state, to 
command the said slaves forthwith to surrender 
themselves, and turn home to their said master. 
And we do hereby also require the sheriff of said 
County of Lenoix to make diligent search and pur- 
suit after the above-mentioned slaves. . . And 
we do hereby, by virtue of an act of assembly of 
this state concerning servants and slaves, inti- 
mate and declare, it the said slaves do not surren- 
der themselves and return home to their master 
immediately after the publication of these presents, 
that any person may kill or destroy said slaves 
by such means as he or they think fit, without 
accusation or impeachment of any crime oroffonee 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



85 



for so doing, or without incurring any penalty or 
forfeiture thereby. 

Given under our hands and seals, this 12th of 

November, 1836. B. Coleman, J. P. [Seal.] 

Jas. Jones, J. P. [Seal.] 



$200 Reward. -Ran away from the subscrib- 
er, about three years ago, a certain negro-man, 
named Ben, commonly known by the name of Ben 
Fox ; also one other negro, by the name of Rigdon, 
who ran away on the 8th of this month. 

I will give the reward of $100 for each of the 
above negroes, to be delivered to me, or confined 
in the jail of Lenoir or Jones County, or for the 
killing of them, so that I can see them. 

Nov. 12, 1836 W. D. Cobb. 

That this act was not a dead letter, also, 
was plainly implied in the protective act 
first quoted. It' slaves were not, as a matter 
of fact, ever outlawed, why does the act for- 
mally recognize such a class ? — "provided 
that this act shall not extend to the killing 
of any slave outlawed by any act of the 
assembly." This language sufficiently in- 
dicates the existence of the custom. 

Further than this, the statute-book of 1821 
contained two acts : the first of which pro- 
vides that all masters in certain counties, 
who have had slaves killed in consequence 
of outlawry, shall have a claim on the 
treasury of the state for their value, unless 
cruel treatment of the slave be proved on 
the part of the master : the second act ex- 
tends the benefits of the latter provision to 
all the counties in the state.* 

Finally, there is evidence that this act 
of outlawry w r as executed so recently as the 
year 1850, — the year in which ''Uncle 
Tom's Cabin " was written. See the follow- 
ing from the Wilmington Journal of De- 
cember 13, 1850 : 

State of Nortu Carolina, New Hanover Coun- 
ty. — Whereas complaint upon oath hath this day 
been made to us, two of the justices of the peace 
for the said state and county aforesaid, by Guil- 
ford Horn, of Edgeoombe County, that a certain 
male slave belonging to him, named Harry, a car- 
penter by trade, about forty years old, five feet five 
inches high, or thereabouts ; yellow complexion ; 
stout built ; with a scar on his left leg (from the 
cut of an axe) ; has very thick lips ; eyes deep 
sunk in his head ; forehead very square ; tolerably 



* Be it further enacted, That when any slave shall be 
legally outlawed in any of the counties within mentioned, 
, . the owner of which shall reside in one of 

Bal ch. 467 *' the said counties, and the said slave shall be 
killed in consequence of such outlawry, the 
value of such slave shall be ascertained by a jury which 
shall be empanelled at the succeeding court of the county 
where the said slave w&^ killed, and a certificate of such 
valuation shall be given by the clerk of the court to the 
owner of said slave, who shall be entitled to receive two- 
thirds of such valuation from the sheriff of the county 
wherein the slave was killed. [Extended to other coun- 
ties in 1787. — Putter, ch. iSO, § 1.] now obsolete. 



loud voice ; has lost one or two of his upper teeth ; 
and has a very dark spot on his jaw, supposed to 
be a mark, — hath absented himself from his mas- 
ter's service, and is supposed to be lurking about 
in this county, committing acts of felony or other 
misdeeds ; these are, therefore, in the name of the 
state aforesaid, to command the said slave forth- 
with to surrender himself and return home to 
his said master ; and we do hereby, by virtue of 
the act of assembly in such cases made and pro- 
vided, intimate and declare that if the said slave 
Harry doth not surrender himself and return home 
immediately after the publication of these presents, 
that any person or persons may kill and destroy 
the said slave by such means as he or they may 
think fit, without accusation or impeachment of 
any crime or offence for so doing, and without in- 
curring any penalty or forfeiture thereb}\ 

Given under our hands and seals, this 29th day 
of June, 1850. 

James T. Miller, J. P. [Seal.] 
W. C. Bettencourt, J. P. [Seal.] 



One Hundred and Twenty-five Dollars Re- 
ward will be paid for the delivery of the said 
Harry to me at Tosnott Depot, Edgecombe County, 
or for his confinement in any jail in the state, 
so that I can get him ; or One Hundred and Fifty 
Dollars will be given for his head. 

He was lately heard from in Newbern, where he 
called himself Henry Barnes (or Burns), and will 
be likely to continue the same name, or assume 
that of Copage or Farmer. He has a free mulatto 
woman for a wife, by the name of Sally Bozeman, 
who has lately removed to Wilmington, and lives 
in that part of the town called Texaa, where he 
will likely be lurking. 

Masters of vessels are particularly cautioned 
against harboring or concealing the said negro on 
board their vessels, as the full penalty of the law 
will be rigorously enforced. 

June 2'J/A, 1850. Guilford Horn. 

There is an inkling of history and ro- 
mance about the description of this same 
Harry, who is thus publicly set up to be 
killed in any way that any of the negro- 
hunters of the swamps may think the most 
piquant and enlivening. It seems he is a 
carpenter. — a powerfully made man, whose 
thews and sinews might be a profitable 
acquisition to himself.' It appears also that 
he has a wife, and the advertiser intimates 
that possibly he may be caught prowling 
about somewhere in her vicinity. This 
indicates sagacity in the writer, certainly. 
Married men generally have a way of liking 
the society of their wives : and it strikes us, 
from what we know of the nature of car- 
penters here in New England, that Harry 
was not peculiar in this respect. Let us 
further notice the portrait of Harry : " Eyes 
deep sunk in his head ; — forehead very 
square." This picture reminds us of what 
a persecuting old ecclesiastic once said, in 
the days of the Port-Royalists, of a certain 
truculent abbess, who stood obstinately to a 



86 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



certain course, in the face of the whole 
power, temporal and spiritual, of the Rom- 
ish church, in spite of fining, imprisoning, 
starving, whipping, beating, and other 
enlightening argumentative processes, not 
wholly peculiar, it seems, to that age. 
" You will never subdue that woman," said 
the ecclesiastic, who was a phrenologist be- 
fore his age; "she's got a, square head, 
and I have always noticed that people with 
square heads never can be turned out of 
their course." We think it very probable 
that Harry, with his "square head," is just 
one of this sort. He is probably one of those 
articles which would be extremely valuable, 
if the owner could only get the use of him. 
His head is well enough, but he will use it 
for himself. It is of no use to any one but 
the wearer ; and the master seems to sym- 
bolize this state of things, by offering twenty- 
five dollars more for the head without the 
body, than he is willing to give for head, 
man and all. Poor Harry ! We wonder 
whether they have caught him yet ; or 
whether the impenetrable thickets, the poi- 
sonous miasma, the deadly snakes, and the 
unwieldy alligators of the swamps, more 
humane than the slave-hunter, have inter- 
posed their uncouth and loathsome forms to 
guard the only fastness in Carolina where a 
slave can live in freedom. 

It is not, then, in mere poetic fiction that 
the humane and graceful pen of Longfellow 
has drawn the following picture : 

" In the dark fens of the Dismal Swamp 

The hunted negro lay; 
He saw the fire of the midnight camp, 
And heard at times the horse's tramp, 

And a bloodhound's distant bay. 

".Where will-o'the-wisps and glow-worms shine, 

In bulrush and in brake; 
Where waving mosses shruud the pine, 
And the cedar grows, and the poisonous vino 

Is spotted like the snake; 

" Where hardly a human foot could pass, 

Or a human heart would dare, — 
On tho quaking turf of the green morass 
11 . crouched in the rank and tangled grass, 

Like a wild boast in his lair. 

" A poor old slave ! infirm and lame. 

Great sears deformed li is face; 
On his forehead he bore the brand of shame, 
And the rags that hid his mangled frame 

Wore the livery of disgrace. 

" All things above were bright and fair, 

All things were glad and froo; 
Lithe squirrels darted hero and there, 
And wild birds filled the echoing air 

With songs of liberty ! 

•* On him alone was the doom of pain, 

i'rom the morning of his birth; 
On him alone the eurso of Cain * 
Fell like the flail on tho garnered grain, 

And struck him to tho earth." 

* Gen. 4:14 — " And it shall come to pass that every one that 
flndeth nic shall slay me." 



The civilized world may and will ask, in 
what state this law has been drawn, and 
passed, and revised, and allowed to appear 
at the present day on the revised statute- 
book, and to be executed in the year of our 
Lord 1850, as the above-cited extracts from 
its most respectable journals show. Is it 
some heathen, Kurdish tribe, some nest of 
pirates, some horde of barbarians, where 
destructive gods are worshipped, and liba- 
tions to their honor poured from human 
skulls 7 The civilized world will not be- 
lieve it, — but it is actually a fact, that this 
law has been made, and is still kept in force, 
by men in every other respect than what 
relates to their slave-code as high-minded, 
as enlightened, as humane, as any men in 
Christendom ; — by citizens of a state which 
glories in the blood and hereditary Christian 
institutions of Scotland. Curiosity to know 
what sort of men the legislators of North 
Carolina m'ght be, led the writer to examine 
with some attention the proceedings and de- 
bates of the convention of that state, called 
to amend its constitution, which assembled 
at Raleigh, June 4th, 1835. It is but jus- 
tice to say that in these proceedings, in 
which all the different and perhaps conflict- 
ing interests of the various parts of the 
state Avere discussed, there was an exhibition 
of candor, fairness and moderation, of gen- 
tlemanly honor and courtesy in the treat- 
ment of opposing claims, and of an over- 
ruling sense of the obligations of law and 
religion, which certainly have not always 
been equally conspicuous in the proceedings 
of deliberative bodies in such cases. It 
simply goes to show that one can judge 
nothing of the religion or of the humanity 
of individuals from what seems to us objec- 
tionable practice, where they have been 
educated under a system entirely incompati- 
ble with both. Such is the very equivocal 
character of what we call virtue. 

It could not be for a moment supposed 
that such men as Judge Ruffin, or many 
of the gentlemen who figure ifc the debates 
alluded to, would ever think of availing 
themselves of the savage permissions of such 
a law. But what then? It follows that 
the law is a direct permission, letting loose 
upon the defenceless slave that class of men 
who exist in every community, who have 
no conscience, no honor, no shame, — who 
are too far below public opinion to be re- 
strained by that, and from whom accordingly 
this provision of the law takes away the 
only availablo restraint of their fiendish na- 
tures. Such men are not peculiar to tho 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



87 



South. It is unhappily too notorious that 
they exist everywhere, — in England, in 
New England, and the world over; but 
they can only arrive at full maturity in 
wickedness under a system where the law 
clothes them with absolute and irresponsible 
power. 

CHAPTER V. 

PROTECTIVE ACTS OF SOUTH CAROLINA AND 
LOUISIANA. — THE IRON COLLAR OF LOU- 
ISIANA AND NORTH CAROLINA. 

Thus far by way of considering the pro- 
tective acts of North Carolina, Georgia and 
Tennessee. 

Certain miscellaneous protective acts of 
various other states will now be cited, 
merely as specimens of the spirit of legisla- 
tion. 

In South Carolina, the act of 1740 pun- 
ished the wilful, deliberate murder of a 
, „„ slave by disfranchisement, and by 

Stroud, p. 39. J 1 1 J A 

2 Brevar.rs a fine ol seven hundred pounds 
Digest, P .24i. current mone j, or, in default of 

payment, imprisonment for seven years. 
But the wilful murder of a slave, in the sense 
contemplated in this law, is a crime which 
would not often occur. The kind of murder 
which was most frequent among masters or 
overseers was guarded against by another 
section of the same act, — how adequately 
the reader will judge for himself, from the 
following quotation : 

If any person shall, on a sudden heat or pas- 
sion, or by undue correction, kill his 
Stroud's s^h, own s i ave? or the slave of any other 
vard's Digest, person, he shall forfeit the sum of 
241. James' three hundred and fifty pounds current 

Digest, 392. jjjt 

° ' money. 

In 1821 the act punishing the wilful 
murder of the slave only with fine or im- 
prisonment was mainly repealed, and it was 
enacted that such crime should be punished 
by death ; but the latter section, which re- 
lates to killing the slave in sudden heat or 
passion, or by undue correction, has been 
altered only by diminishing the pecuniary 
penalty to a fine of five hundred dollars, 
authorizing also imprisonment for six months. 

The next protective statute to be noticed 
is the following from the act of 1740, South 
Carolina. 

In case any person shall wilfully cut out the 
tongue, put out the eye, * * * or cruelly scald, 
Stroud, p. 40. burn, or deprive any slave of any limb, 
2 Brevard's or member, or shall inflict any other 
Digest. 241. crue j p un i 8 hment, otfur than by whip- 
ping or beating with a horse-whip, cowskin, switch 



or small stick, or by putting irons on, or confining 
or imprisoning such slave, every such person shall, 
for every such offence, forfeit the sum of one hun- 
dred pounds, current money. 

The language of this law, like many other 
of these protective enactments, is exceedingly 
suggestive ; the first suggestion that occurs 

CO " oo 

is, What sort of an institution, and what 
sort of a state of society is it, that called 
out a law" worded like this 1 Laws are 
generally not made against practices that 
do not exist, and exist with some degree of 
frequency. 

The advocates of slavery are very fond 
of comparing it to the apprentice system of 
England and America. Let us suppose 
that in the British Parliament, or in a New 
England Legislature, the following law is 
proposed, under the title of An Act for the 
Protection of Apprentices, &c. &c. 

In case any person shall wilfully cut out the 
tongue, put out the eye, or cruelly scald, burn, or 
deprive any apprentice of any limb or member, or 
shall inflict any other cruel punishment, other 
than by whipping or beating with a horse-whip, 
cowskin, switch or small stick, or by putting irons 
on or confining or imprisoning such apprentice, 
every such person shall, for every such offence, 
forfeit the sum of one hundred pounds, current 
money. 

What a sensation such a proposed law 
would make in England may be best left 
for Englishmen to say ; but in New Eng- 
land it would simply constitute the proposer 
a candidate for Bedlam. Yet that such a 
statute is necessary in South Carolina is 
evident enough, if we reflect that, because 
there is no such statute in Virginia, it has 
been decided that a wretch who perpetrates 
all these enormities on a slave cannot even 
be indicted for it, unless the slave dies. 

But let us look further : — What is to be 
the penalty when any of these fiendish 
things are done 7 

Why, the man forfeits a hundred pounds, 
current money. Surely he ought to pay as 
much as that for doing so very unnecessary 
an act, when the Legislature bountifully 
allows him to inflict any torture which re- 
vengeful ingenuity could devise, by means 
of horse-whip, cowskin, switch or small stick, 
or putting irons on, or confining and im- 
prisoning. One would surely think that 
here was sufficient scope .and variety of 
legalized means of torture to satisfy any 
ordinary appetite for vengeance. It would 
appear decidedly that any more piquant 
varieties of agony ought to be an extra 
charge. The advocates of slavery are fond 
of comparing the situation of the slave with 



88 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



that of the English laborer. We are not 
aware that the English laborer has been so 
unfortunate as to be protected bj any enact- 
ment like this, since the days of villeinage. 
Judge Stroud says, that the same law, 
substantially, has been adopted in Louisiana. 
„ ,, , It is true that the civil code of 

SUMud's.Skctch, . . . 

p. 41. i Mar. Louisiana thus expresses its hu- 

Digest, 054. ,• x 

mane intentions. 

The slave is entirely subject to the will of his 
master, who may correct and chastise him, though 
not with unusual rigor, nor so as to maim or 
mutilate him, or to expose him to the danger of 
loss of life, or to cause his death. — Civil Code of 
Louisiana, Article 173. 

The expression "unusual rigor" is sug- 
gestive, again. It will afford large latitude 
for a jury, in states where slaves are in the 
habit of dying under moderate correction ; 
where outlawed slaves may be killed by any 
means which any person thinks fit ; and 
where laws have to be specifically made 
against scalding, burning, cutting out the 
tongue, putting out the eye, &c. What 
will be thought unusual rigor? This is a 
question, certainly, upon which persons in 
states not so constituted can have no means 
of forming an opinion. 

In one of the newspaper extracts with 
which we prefaced our account, the following 
protective act of Louisiana is alluded to, as 
being particularly satisfactory and efficient. 
We give it, as quoted by Judge Stroud in 
his Sketch, page 58, giving his reference. 

No master shall be compelled to sell his 1 slave, 
but in one of two cases, to wit: the first, when, 
being only co-proprietor of the slave, his co-pro- 
prietor demands the sale, in order to make parti- 
t.i >n of the property ; second, when the master 
shall lie con'victed of cruel treatment of his slave, 

ASH THE JUDOE SHALL DEEM IT PROPER TO PRONOUNCE, 

h ssid.es the penalty established for such cases, that 
the slave shall be sold at public auction, in order 
i > place him out of the reach of the power which 
his master has abused. — Civil Code, Art. 102. 

The question for a jury to determine in 
this case is, What is cruel treatment of a 
slave? Now, if all these barbarities which 
have been sanctioned by the legislative acts 
which we have quoted are not held to be 
cruel treatment, the question is, What is 
cruel treatment of a slave? 

Everything that fiendish barbarity could 
desire can be effected under the protection 
of the law of South Carolina, which, as we 
have just shown, exists also in Louisiana. 
It is true tbe law restrains from some par- 
ticular forms of cruelty. If any person lias 
a mind to scald or burn his slave,— -and it 
seems, by the statute, that there have been 
i-uch people, — these statutes merely pro- 



vide that he shall do it in decent privacy ; 
for, as. the very keystone of Southern juris- 
prudence is the rejection of colored testi- 
mony, such an outrage, if perpetrated most 
deliberately in the presence of hundreds of 
slaves, could not be proved upon the master. 
It is to be supposed that the fiendish 
people whom such statutes have in view will 
generally have enough of common sense not 
to perform it in the presence of white wit- 
nesses, since this simple act of prudence 
will render them entirely safe in doing what- 
ever they have a mind to. We are told, it 
is true, as we have been reminded by our 
friend in the newspaper before quoted, that 
in Louisiana the deficiency caused by the 
rejection of negro testimony is supplied by 
the following most remarkable provision of 
the Code Noir : 

If any slave be mutilated, beaten, or ill treated, 
contrary to the true intent and meaning of this 
section, when no one shall be present, in such 
case the owner, or other person having the charge 
Or management of said slave thus mutilated, shall 
be deemed responsible and guilty of the said 
offence, and shall be prosecuted without further 
evidence, unless the said owner, or other person 
so as aforesaid, can prove the contrary by means 
of good and sufficient evidence, or can clear him- 
self by his own oath, which said oath every court 
under the cognizance of which such offence shall 
have been examined and tried is by this act 
authorized to administer. — Code Noir. Crimes and 
Offences, 56. xvii. Rev. Stat. 1852, p. 550, § 141. 

Would one have supposed that sensible 
people could ever publish as a law such a 
specimen of utter legislative nonsense — so 
ridiculous on the very face of it ! 

The object is to bring to justice those 
fiendish people who burn, scald, mutilate, 
&c. How is this done ? Why, it is enacted 
that the fact of finding the slave in this con- 
dition shall be held presumption against the 
owner or overseer, unless — unless what '? 
Why, unless he will prove to the contrary, 
— or swear to the contrary, it is no matter 
"which — either will answer the purpose. 
The question is, If a man is bad enough 
to do these things, will he not be bad 
enough to swear falsely ? As if men who 
are the incarnation of cruelty, as supposed 
by the deeds in question, would not have 
sufficient intrepidity of conscience to com- 
pass a false oath ! 

What was this law ever made for ? Can 
any one imagine? 

Upon this whole subject, we may quote 
the language of Judge Stroud, who thus 
sums up the whole amount of the protective 
laws for the slave, in the United States of 
America : 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



89 



Upon a fair review of what has been written on 
the subject of this proposition, the result is found 
to be — ■ that the master's power to inflict corporal 
punishment to any extent, short of life and limb, 
is fully sanctioned by law, in all the slave-holding 
states ; that the master, in at least two states, is 
expressly protected in using the horse-whip and 
cowskin as instruments for beating^ his slave ; 
that he may with entire impunity, in the same 
states, load his slave with irons, or subject him 
to perpetual imprisonment, whenever he may so 
choose * that, for cruelly scalding, wilfully cut- 
ting out the tongue, putting out an eye, and for 
any other dismemberment, if proved, a fine of one 
hundred pounds currency only is incurred in South 
Carolina; that, though in all the states the wil- 
ful, deliberate and malicious murder of the slave 
is now directed to be punished with death, yet, as 
in the case of a white offender none except whites 
can give evidence, a conviction can seldom, if 
ever, take place. — Stroud's Sketch, p. 43. 

One very singular antithesis of two laws 
of Louisiana will still further show that 



Miss Grimke furnished to her brother-in- 
law, Mr. Weld, and has been before the 
public ever since 1839, in his work entitled 
Slavery as It Is, p. 22. 

A handsome mulatto woman, about eighteen or 
twenty years of age, whose independent spirit 
could not brook the degradation of slavery, was in 
the habit of running away : for this offence she had 
been repeatedly sent by her master and mistress to 
be whipped by the keeper of the Charleston work- 
house. This had been done with such inhuman 
severity as to lacerate her back in a most shocking 
manner; a finger could not belaid between the 
cuts. But the love of liberty w!Ls too strong to 
be annihilated by torture ; and, as a last resort, 
she was whipped at several different times, and 
kept a close prisoner. A heavy iron collar, with 
three long prongs projecting from it, was placed 
round her neck, and a strong and sound front tooth 
was extracted, to serve as a mark to describe her, 
in case of escape. Her sufferings at this time 
were agonizing ; she could lie in no position but 
deadness of public sentiment on cruelty to ° n her back, which was sore from scourgings, as 
. , i • i • • ii j .lean testify from personal inspection; and her 

only place of rest was the floor, on a blanket. 
These outrages were committed in a family where 
the mistress daily read the Scriptures, and as- 
sembled her children for family worship. She 
was accounted, and was really, so far as alms- 
giving was concerned, a charitable woman, and 
tender-hearted to the poor ; and yet this suffering 
slave, who was the seamstress of the family, was 
continually in her presence, sitting in her chamber 
to sew, or engaged in her other household work, 
with her lacerated and bleeding back, her muti- 
lated mouth, and heavy iron collar, without, so 
far as appeared, exciting any feelings of compas- 
sion. 

This iron collar the author has often 
heard of from sources equally authentic* 



the slave which is an inseparable attendant 
on the system. It will be recollected that 
the remarkable protective law of South 
Carolina, with respect to scalding, burning, 
cutting out the tongue, and putting out the 
eye of the slave, has been substantially en- 
acted in Louisiana ; and that the penalty for 
a man's doing these things there, if he has 
not sense enough -to do it privately, is not 
more than five hundred dollars. 

Now, compare this other statute of Louisi- 
ana, (Rev. Stat., 1852, p. 552, $ 151) : 

If any person or persons, &c, shall cut or break 
any iron chain or collar, which any master of 
slaves should have used, in order to 
Stroud - p- 41 - prevent the running away or escape of j That one will meet with it everyday in 

any such slave or slaves, such person or persons so walking the streets, is not probable : but 
offending shall, on conviction, &c, be fined not that it must have been used with some great 
less than -two hundred dollars, nor exceeding one defTree of f requenC y i s evident from the 
thousand dollars; and suffer imprisonment for a _ » i . j > 

term not exceeding two years, nor less than six fact of a law being thought necessary to 
months.— Act of Assembly of March 6, 1819. ; protect it. But look at the penalty of the 
Pamphlet, page 64. j two protective laws ! The fiendish cruel- 

Some Englishmen may naturally ask, j ties described in the act of South Carolina 
" What is this iron collar which the Legis- cost the perpetrator not -/nore than five 
lature have thought worthy of being pro- j hundred dollars, if he does them before 
tected by a special act? " On this subject white people. The act of humanity costs 
will be presented the testimony of an unim- > from two hundred to one thousand dollars, 
peachable witness, Miss Sarah M. Grimke, j and imprisonment from six months to two 
a personal friend of the author. " Miss years, according to discretion of court'! 
Grimke is a daughter of the late Judge What public sentiment was it which made 

Grimke, of the Supreme Court of South these laws ? 

Carolina, and sister of the late Hon. Thomas j ._, . ~ ' '. . v .. rnr ,,i; na „, 

r; . ' . , „ , * The iron collar was also in vogue in North Carolina, as 

S. Grimke. She IS nOW a member OI the the following extract from the statute-book will show. 

Society of Friends, and resides in Bcllville, The wearcrs of this * n }° le of a PP arel certainly have some 

-vr f m , ' . j. reason to complain of the "tyranny of fashion. 

JNew Jersey. The statement given is ot a « When the keeper of the said public jail shall, by di- 

kind that its author did not mean to give, 'rection of such court as aforesaid, let out any negro or 
. , . i ii ? runaway to hire, to any person or persons whomsoever, the 

nor wish to give, and never would have said ke ^ per shall> at J tho timo of his delivery, cause an 

given, had it not been made necessary tO iron collar to be put on the neck of such negro or runaway, 

ni i.1.' ■ +U~ „1,„« K,„ with the letters P. G. stamped thereon; and thereafter 

illustrate this passage in the Slave-law. ^ n Jj keeper shftl , not be answerable for any escape of 

The aCCOUnt OCCUrS in a Statement which the said negro or runaway."— Potter's Retinal, i. 1G2. 



90 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN 

CHAPTER VI. 



PROTECTIVE ACTS WITH REGARD TO FOOD 
AND RAIMENT, LABOR, ETC. 

Illustrative Drama of Tom v. Legree, under the Law of 
South Carolina. — Separation of Parent and Child. 

Having finished the consideration of the 
laws which protect the life and limb of the 
slave, the reader may feel a curiosity to 
know something of the provisions by which 
he is protected in regard to food and clothing, 
and from the exactions of excessive labor. 
It is true, there are multitudes of men in the 
Northern States who would say, at once, that 
such enactments, on the very face of them, 
must be superfluous and absurd. ' ' What ! ' ' 
they say, "are not the slaves property? 
and is it likely that any man will impair 
the market value of his own property by not 
giving them sufficient food or clothing, or 
by overworking them?" This process of 
reasoning appears to have been less con- 
vincing to the legislators of Southern States 
than to gentlemen generally at the North ; 
since, as Judge Taylor says, " the act of 

wheeier, P . 1786 (Iredell'a Revisal, p. 588) 
220. state w. does, in the preamble, recognize 
fc & e N.?nv n ond's the fact, that many persons, by 

c. Rep. 54. crue i treatment of their slaves, 
cause them to commit crimes for which 
they are executed ; " and the judge further 
explains this language, by saying, " The 
cruel treatment here alluded to must consist 
in withholding from them the necessaries of 
life ; and the crimes thus resulting are such 
as are necessary to furnish them with food 
and raiment." 

The State of South Carolina, in the act 
of 1740 (see Stroud's Sketch, p. 28), had 
a section with the following language in its 
preamble : 

Whereas many owners of slaves, and others who 

have the cure, management, and overseeing of 

slaves, do confine them so closely to hard 

Stroud, p. - . la/i/)r ( j ia( y^y ^ w nQt su j^ t . jen< tunc 

for natural rest ; — 

And the law goes on to enact that the 
slave shall not work more than fifteen hours 
a day in summer, and fourteen in winter. 
Judge Stroud makes it appear that in 
three of the slave states the time allotted for 
work to convicts in prison, whose punish- 
ment is to consist in hard labor, cannot ex- 
ceed ten hours, even in the summer months. 

This was the protective act of South 
Carolina, designed to reform the abusive 
practices of masters who confined their 
slaves so closely that they had not time for 



natural rest ! What sort of habits of thought 
do these humane provisions show, in the 
makers of them? In order to protect the 
slave from what they consider undue exac- 
tion, they humanely provide that he shall 
be obliged to work only four or five hours 
longer than the convicts in the prison of the 
neighboring state ! In the Island of Jamaica, 
besides many holidays which were accorded 
by law to the slave, tea hours a day was the 
extent to which he was compelled by law 
ordinarily to work. — See Stroud, p. 29. 

With regard to protective acts concerning 
food and clothing, Judge Stroud gives the 
following example from the legislation of 
•South Carolina. The author gives it as- 
quoted by Stroud, p. 32. 

In case any person, &c, who shall be the 
owner, or who shall have the care, government or 
charge, of any slave or slaves, shall deny, neglect 
or refuse to allow, such slave or slaves, &c, 
sufficient clothing, covering or food, it shall and 
may he lawful for any person or persons, on behalf 
of such slave or slaves, to make complaint to the 
next neighboring justice in the parish where such 
slave or slaves live, or are usually employed, * * * 
and the said justice shall summons the party 
against whom such complaint shall be made, and 
shall inquire of, hear and determine, the same ; 
and, if the said justice shall find the said complaint 
to be true, or that such person will not exculpate 
or clear himself from the charge, by his or her own 
oath, which such person shall be at liberty to do in 
all cases where positive proof is not given of the 
offence, such justice shall and may make such 
orders upon the same, for the relief of such slave 
or slaves, as he in his discretion shall think fit; 
and shall and may set and impose a fine or 
penalty on any person who shall offend in the 
premises, in any sum not exceeding twenty 
pounds current money, for each offence. — 2 Brev- 
ard's, Dig. 241. Also Cobb's Dig. 827. 

A similar law obtains in Louisiana. — 
Rev. Stat. 1852, p. 557, $ 166. 

Now, would not anybody think, from the 
virtuous solemnity and gravity of this act, 
that it was intended in some way to amount 
to something? Let us give a little sketch, 
to show how much it does amount to. Ange- 
lina Griinke Weld, sister to Sarah Grimke, 
before quoted, gives the following account 
of the situation of slaves on plantations : * 

And here let me say, that the treatment of 
plantation slaves cannot be fully known, except by 
the poor sufferers themselves, and their drivers 
and overseers. In a multitude of instances, even 
the master can know very little of the actual con- 
dition of his own field-slaves, and his wile and 
daughters far less. A few facts concerning my 
own family will show this. Our permanent resi- 
dence was in Charleston ; our country-seat ( Belle- 
mont) was two hundred miles distant, in the 

* Slavery as It Is ; Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses. 
New York," lS^'J. pp. 5'2, 53. 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



91 



north western part of the state, where, for some 
years, our family spent a few months annually. 
Our plantation was three miles from this family 
mansion. Ttiere all the field-slaves lived and 
worked. Occasionally, — once a month, perhaps, 
— some of the family would ride over to the planta- 
tion ; but I never visited the fields where the slaves 
were at work, and knew almost nothing of their 
condition ; but this I do know, that the overseers 
who had charge of them were generally unprin- 
cipled and intemperate men. But I rejoice to 
know that the general treatment of slaves in that 
region of country was far milder than on the 
plantations in the lower country. 

Throughout all the eastern and middle portions 
of the state, the planters very rar;ly reside per- 
manently on their plantations. They have almost 
invariably two residences, and spend less than 
half the year on their estates. Even while spend- 
ing a few months on them, politics, field-sports, 
races, speculations, journeys, visits, company, 
literary pursuits, &c, absorb so much of their 
time, that th<y must, to a considerable extent, 
take the condition of their slaves on trust, from 
the reports of their overseers. I make this state- 
ment, because these slaveholders (the wealthier 
class) are, I believe, almost the only ones who 
visit the North with their families ; and Northern 
opinions of slavery are based chiefly on their tes- 
timony. 

With regard to overseers, Miss Grimke's 
testimony is further borne out by the uni- 
versal acknowledgment of Southern owners. 
A description of this class of beings is fur- 
nished by Mr. Wirt, in his Life of Patrick 
Henry, page 34. " Last and lowest," he 
says, [of different classes in society] "a 
fecitluin of beings called overseers, — a most 
abject, degraded, unprincipled race." Now, 
suppose, while the master is in Charleston, 
enjoying literary leisure, the slaves on some 
Bellemont or other plantation, getting tired 
of being hungry and cold, form themselves 
into a committee of the whole, to see what 
is to be done. A broad-shouldered, courage- 
ous fellow, whom we will call Tom, declares 
it is too bad, and he won't stand it any 
longer ; and, having by some means become 
acquainted with this benevolent protective 
act. resolves to make an appeal to the horns 
of this legislative altar. Tom talks stoutly, 
having just been bought on to the place, 
and been used to better quarters elsewhere. 
The women and children perhaps admire, 
but the venerable elders of the plantation, — 
Sambo, Cudge, Pomp and old Aunt Dinah, 
— tell him he better mind himself, and keep 
clar o' dat ar. Tom, being young and pro- 
gressive, does not regard these conservative 
maxims ; he is determined that, if there is 
such a thing as justice to be got, he will have 
it. After considerable research, he finds 
some white man in the neighborhood verdant 
enough to enter the complaint for him. 



Master Legree finds himself, one sunshiny, 
pleasant morning, walked off to some Justice 
Dogberry's, to ansAver to the charge of not 
giving his niggers enough to eat and wear. 
We will call the infatuated white man who 
has undertaken this fool's errand Master 
Shallow. Let us imagine a scene : — Le- 
gree, standing carelessly with his hands in 
his pockets ; rolling a quid of tobacco in his 
mouth ; Justice Dogberry, seated in all the 
majesty of law, reinforced by a decanter of 
whiskey and some tumblers, intended to 
assist in illuminating the intellect in such 
obscure cases. 

Justice Dogberry. Come, gentlemen, 
take a little something, to begin with. Mr. 
Legree, sit down ; sit down, Mr. — a' 
what 's-your-name ? — Mr. Shallow. 

Mr. Legree and Mr. Shallow each sit 
down, and take their tumbler of whiskey and 
water. After some little conversation, the 
justice introduces the business as follows : 

"Now, about this nigger business. Gentle- 
men, you know the act of um — urn, — 

where the deuce is that act? [Fumbling an 
old law-book.] How plagued did you ever 
hear of that act, Shallow ? I 'm sure I 'm 
forgot all about it ; — ! here 't is. Well, 
Mr. Shallow, the act says you must make 
proof, you observe. 

Mr. Shallow. [Stuttering and hesitat- 
ing.] Good land ! why, don't everybody 
see that them ar niggers are most starved ? 
Only see how ragged they are ! 

Justice. I can't say as I 've observed it 



particular, 
tented. 
Shallow. 



Seem to be very well con- 



[Eagerly] 



ask 



But just 
Pomp, or Sambo, or Dinah, or Tom ! 

Justice Dogberry. [With dignity.] I'm 
astonished at you, Mr. Shallow ! You 
think of producing negro testimony? I 
hope I know the law better than that ! We 
must have direct proof, you know. 

Shallow is posed ; Legree significantly 
takes another tumbler of whiskey and water, 
and Justice Dogberry gives a long ahe-a- 
um. After a few moments the justice 
speaks : 

" Well, after all, I suppose, Mr. Legree, 
you would n't have any objections to swarm' 
off; that settles it all, you know." 

As swearing is what Mr. Legree is rather 
more accustomed to do than anything else 
that could be named, a more appropriate 
termination of the affair could not be sug- 
gested ; and he swears, accordingly, to any 
extent, and with any fulness and variety 
of oath that could be desired ; and thus the 



92 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



little affair terminates. But it does not 
terminate thus for Tom or Sambo, Dinah, 
or any others who have been alluded to for 
authority. What will happen to them, when 
Mr. Legree comes home, had better be left 
to conjecture. 

It is claimed, by the author of certain 
paragraphs emoted at the commencement of 
Tart II., that there exist in Louisiana 
ample protective acts to prevent the separa- 
tion of young children from their mothers. 
This writer appears to be in the enjoyment 
of an amiable ignorance and unsophisticated 
innocence with regard to the workings of 
human society generally, which is, on the 
whole, rather refreshing. For, on a certain 
incident in ;i Uncle Tom's Cabin," which 
represented Cassy's little daughter as hav- 
ing been sold from her. he makes the fol- 
lowing na f remark : 

Now, the reader will perhaps be surprised to 
know that such an incident as the sale of Cassy 
apart from Eliza, upon which the whole interest 
of the foregoing narrative hinges, never could have 
tu.ken place in Louisiana, and that the bill of sale 
for Eliza would not have been worth the paper it 
was written on. — Observe. George Shelby states 
that Eliza was eight or nine years old at the time 
his father purchased her in New Orleans. Let 
us again look at the statute-book of Louisiana. 

In the Code Noir we find it set down that 

" Every person is expressly prohibited from 
selling separately from their mothers the children 
who shall not luive attained the full age of ten 
years." 

And this humane provision is strengthened by 
a statute, one clause of which runs as follows : 

" lie it further enacted, that if any person or 
persons shall sell the mother of any slave child or 
children under the age of ten years, separate from 
said child or children, or shall, the mother Hang, 
sell any slave child or children often years of age or 
under, separate from said mother, such person or 
persons shall incur the penalty of the sixth sec- 
tion of this act." 

'fhis penalty is a fine of not les3 than one 
thousand aor inure than two thousand dollars, 
and imprisonment in the public jail for a period 
of nut less than six months nor more than one 
year. — Vide Acts of Louisiana, 1 Session, 9th 
'Legislature, 1828-0, No. 24, Section 1G. {Rev. 
Stat. 1852, p. 550, ^ 143.) 

What a charming freshness of nature is 
suggested by this assertion ! A thing could 
not have happened in a certain state, be 
cause there is a law against it ! 

Has there not been for two years a law 
'forbidding to succor fugitives, or to hinder 
their arrest? — and has not this thing been 
done thousands of times in all the Northern 
States, and is not it more and more likely 
to be done every year? What is a law, 
against the whole public sentiment of 
society? — and will anybody venture tosay 
that the public sentiment of Louisiana 



practically goes against separation of fami- 
lies? 

But let us examine a case more minutely, 
remembering the bearing on it of two 
great foundation principles of slave juris- 
prudence : namely, that a slave cannot 
bring a suit in any case, except in a suit 
for personal freedom, and this in some 
states must be brought by a guardian ; and 
that a slave cannot bear testimony in any 
case in which "whites are implicated. 

Suppose Butler wants to sell Cassy's 
child of nine years. There is a statute for- 
bidding to sell under ten years; — what is 
Cassy to do ? She cannot bring suit. Will 
the state prosecute? Suppose it does, — 
what then? Butler says the child is ten 
years old ; if he pleases, he will say she is 
ten and a half, or eleven! What is Ca^sy to 
do ? She cannot testify ; besides, she is 
utterly in Butler's power. He may tell her 
that if she offers to stir in the affair, he will 
whip the child within an inch of its life; and 
she knows he can do it, and that there is no 
help for it ; — he may lock her up in a dun- 
geon, sell her on to a distant plantation, or 
do any other despotic thing he chooses, and 
there is nobody to say Nay. 

*How much does the protective statute 
amount to for Cassy? It may be very 
well -as a piece of advice to the public, or 
as a decorous expression of opinion; but 
one might as well try to stop the current of 
the Mississippi with a bulrush as the tide of 
trade in human beings with such a regula- 
tion. 

We think that, by this time, the reader 
will agree with us, that the less the defend- 
ers of slavery say about protective statutes, 
the better. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE EXECUTION OF JUSTICE. 

State v. Eliza Rowand. — The " JEgis of Protection " to 
the Slave's Life. 

« We cannot but regard the fact of this trial as a salu- 
tary occurrence." — Charleston Courier. 

Having given some account of what sort 
of statutes are to be found on the law-books 
of slavery, the reader will hardly be satisfied 
without knowing what sort of trials are held 
under them. We will quote one specimen of 
a trial, reported in the Charleston Courier 
of May 6th, 1847. The Charles/on Courier 
is one of the leading papers of South Caro- 
lina, and the case is reported with the ut- 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



93 



most apparent innocence that there was any- 
thing about the trial that could reflect in the 
least on the character of the state for the 
utmost legal impartiality. In fact, the 
Charleston Courier ushers it into public 
view with the following flourish of trumpets, 
as something winch is forever to confound 
those who say that South Carolina does not 
protect the life of the slave : 

THE TRIAL FOR MURDER. 

Our community was deeply interested and ex- 
cited, yesterday," by a case of great importance, 
and also of entire novelty in our jurisprudence. 
It was the trial of a lady of respectable family, 
and the mother of a large family, charged with 
the murder of her own or her husband's slave. 
The court-house was thronged with spectators of 
the exciting drama, who remained, with unabated 
interest and undiminished numbers, until the ver- 
dict was rendered acquitting the prisoner. We 
cannot but regard the fact of this trial as a salu- 
tary, although in itself lamentable occurrence, as 
it will show to the world that, however panoplied 
in station and wealth, and although challenging 
those sympathies which are the right and inher- 
itance of the female sex, no one will be suffered, in 
this community, to escape the most sifting scru- 
tiny, at the risk of even an ignominious death, 
who stands charged with the susjucion of murder- 
ing a slave, — to whose life our law now extends 
the asgis of protection, in the same manner as it 
does to that of the white man, save only in the 
character of the evidence necessary for conviction or 
defence. While evil-disposed persons at home are 
thus taught that they may expect rigorous trial 
and condign punishment, when, actuated by ma- 
lignant passions, they invade the life of the hum- 
ble slave, the enemies of our domestic institution 
abroad will find, their calumnies to the contrary 
notwithstanding, that we are resolved, in this 
particular, to do the full measure of our duty to 
the laws of humanity. We subjoin a report of 
the case. 

The proceedings of the trial are thus 
given : 

TRIAL FOR THE MURDER OF A SLAVE. 

State v. Eliza Rowand. — Spring Term, May 5, 
1847. 
Tried before his Ilonor Judge O'Neall. 
The prisoner was brought to the bar and ar- 
raigned, attended by her husband and mother, and 
humanely supported, during the trying scene, by 
the sheriff, J. B. Irving, Esq. On her arraign 
ment, she pleaded " Not Guilty," and for her 
trial, placed herself upon " God and her country." 
After challenging John M. Deas, James Bancroft, 
II. F. Harbers, C. J. Beckman, E. R. Cowperth- 
. waite, Parker J. Holland, Moses D. Hyams, 
Thomas Glaze, John Lawrence, B. Archer, J. S. 
Addison, B. P. Colburn, B. M. Jenkins, Carl 
Houseman, Geo. Jackson, and Joseph Coppen- 
berg, the prisoner accepted the subjoined panel, 
who were duly sworn, and charged with the case : 
1. John L. Nowell, foreman. -. Elias Whilden. 
3. Jesse Coward, i. Effington Wagner. 5. Win. 
Whaley. 6. James Culbert. 7. K. L. Baker. 
8. S. Wiley. 'J. W. S. Chisohn, 10. T. M. 
Howard. 11. John Bickley. 12. John Y. Stock. 



The following is the indictment on which the 
prisoner was arraigned for trial : 

The Stale v. Eliza Roicand — Indictment for mur- 
der of a slave. 
State of South Carolina, ) , ., 
Charleston District, $ t0 Wlt : 

At a Court of General Sessions, begun and 
holden in and for the district of Charleston, in 
the State of South Carolina, at Charleston, in the 
district and state aforesaid, on Monday, the third 
day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand 
eight hundred and forty-seven : 

The jurors of and for the district of Charleston, 
aforesaid, in the State of South Carolina, afore- 
said, upon their oaths present, that Eliza Rowand, 
the wife of Robert Rowand, Esq., not having the 
fear of God before her eyes, but being moved and 
seduced by the instigation of the devil, on the 6th 
clay of January, in the year of our Lord one thou- 
sand eight hundred and forty-seven, with force 
and arms, at Charleston, in the district of Charles- 
ton, and state aforesaid, in and upon a certain 
female slave of the said Robert Rowand, named 
Maria, in the peace of God, and of the said state, 
then and there being, feloniously, maliciously, 
wilfully, deliberately, and of her malice afore- 
thought, did make an assault ; and that a certain 
ojher slave of the said Robert Rowand, named 
Richard, then and there, being then and there in 
the presence and by the command of the said Eliza 
Rowand, with a certain piece of wood, which he 
the said Richard in both his hands then and there 
had and held, the said Maria did beat and strike, 
in and upon the head of her the said Maria, then 
and there giving to her the said Maria, by such 
striking and beating, as aforesaid, with the piece 
of wood aforesaid, divers mortal bruises on the 
top, back, and sides of the head of her the said 
Maria, of which several mortal bruises she, the 
said Maria, then and there instantly died ; and 
that the said Eliza Rowand was then and there 
present, and then and there feloniously, mali- 
ciously, wilfully, deliberately, and of her malice 
aforethought, did order, command, and require, 
the said slave named Richard the murder and fel- 
ony aforesaid, in manner and form aforesaid, to 
do and commit. And as the jurors aforesaid, up- 
on their oaths aforesaid, do say, that the said 
Eliza Rowand her the said slave named Maria, 
in the manner and by the means aforesaid, felo- 
niously, maliciously, wilfully, deliberately, and of 
her malice aforethought, did kill and murder, 
against the form of the act of the General As- 
sembly of the said state in such case made and 
provided, and against the peace and dignity of 
the same state aforesaid. 

And the jurors aforesaid, upon their oaths 
aforesaid, do further present, that the said Eliza 
Rowand, not having the fear of God before her 
eyes, but being moved and seduced by the insti- 
gation of the devil, on the sixth day of January, 
in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hun- 
dred and forty-seven, with force and arms, at 
Charleston, in the district of Charleston, and 
state aforesaid, in and upon a certain other fe- 
male slave of Robert Rowand, named Maria, in 
the peace of God, and of the said state, then and 
there being, feloniously, maliciously, wilfully, 
deliberately, and of her malice aforethought, did 
make an assault; and that the said Eliza Row- 
and, with a certain piece of wood, which she, the 
said Eliza Rowand, in both her hands then and 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



94 

there had and held, her the said last-mentioned 
slave named Maria did then and there strike, and 
beat, in and upon the head of her the said Ma- 
ria, then and there giving to her the said Maria, 
by such striking and beating aforesaid, with the 
piece of wood aforesaid, divers mortal bruises, on 
the top, back, and side of the head, of her the 
said Maria, of which said several mortal bruises 
she the said Maria then and there instantly died. 
And so the jurors aforesaid, upon their oaths 
aforesaid, do say, that the said Eliza Rowand 
her the said last-mentioned slave named Maria, 
in the manner and by the "means last mentioned, 
feloniously, maliciously, wilfully, deliberately, 
and of her malice aforethought, did kill and mur- 
der, against the form of the act of the General 
Assembly of the said state in such case made and 
provided, and against the peace and dignity of 
the same state aforesaid. 

H. Bailey, Attorney-general. 

As some of our readers may not have been 
in the habit of endeavoring to extract any- 
thing like common sense or information 
from documents so very concisely and lu- 
minously worded, the author will just state 
her own opinion that . the above document 



They were charged, too, with the sacred care of 
the law of the land ; and to their solution was 
submitted one of the most solemn questions ever 
intrusted to the arbitrament of man. They 
should pursue a direct and straight-forward course, 
turning neither to the right hand nor to the left 
— influenced neither by prejudice against the pris- 
oner, nor by a morbid sensibility in her behalf. 
Some of them might practically and personally 
be strangers to their present duty ; but they were 
all familiar with the laws, and must be aware of 
the responsibilities of jurymen. It was scarcely 
necessary to tell them that, if evidence fixed guilt 
on this prisoner, they should not hesitate to record 
a verdict of guilty, although they shoidd write that 
verdict in tears of blood. They should let no 
sickly sentimentality, or morbid feeling on the 
subject of capital punishments, deter them from 
the discharge of their plain and obvious duty. 
They were to administer, not to make, the law ; 
they were called on to enforce the law, by sanc- 
tioning the highest duty to God and to their coun- 
try. If any of them were disturbed with doubts 
or scruples on this point, he scarcely supposed 
they would have gone into the jury-box. The 
law had awarded capital punishment as the 
meet retribution for the crime under investiga- 
tion, and they were sworn to administer that 



"i ~J "i "" i\,~^ T\r,.o TTl^o "Rrvi.-nr.rl I law. It had, too, the full sanction of Holy 
intended to charge Mrs. liza Remand ^ we ^ ^ m ^ l( the ^ cannot £ 



with having killed her slave Maria, in one 
of two Avays: either with beating her on 
the head with her own hands, or having the 
same deed performed by proxy, by her slave- 
man Richard. The whole case is now pre- 
sented. In ordpr to make the reader clear- 
ly understand the arguments, it is necessary 
that he bear in mind that the law of 1740, 
as we have before shown, punished the mur- 
der of the slave only with fine and dis- 
. franchisement, while the law of 1821 pun- 
ishes it with death. 

On motion of Mr. Petigru, the prisoner was 
allowed to remove from the bar, and take her 
place by her counsel ; the judge saying he grant- 
ed the motion only because the prisoner was a 
woman, hut that no such privilege would have 
been extended by him to any man. 

The Attorney-general, Henry Bailey, Esq., 
then rose and opened the case for the state, in 
substance, as follows : He said that, after months 
of anxiety and expectation, the curtain had at 
length risen, and he and the jury were about to 
bear their part in the sail drama 6f real life, which 
had so long engrossed the public mind. He and 
they were called to the discharge of an import- 
ant, painful, and solemn duty. They were to 
pass between the prisoner and the state — to take 
an inquisition of blood ; on their decision hung 
the life or death, the honor or ignominy, of the 
prisoner; yet he trusted he and they would have 
strength and ability to perform their duty faith- 
fully; and, whatever might be the result, their 
consciences would be consoled and quieted i>\ thai 
reflection. He hade the jury pause and reflect on 
the great sanctions and solemn responsibilities 
under which they were acting. The constitution 
of the state invested them with power over all 
that affected the life and was dear to the family 
of the unfortunate lady on trial before them. 



cleansed of the blood shed therein, except by the 
blood of him that shed it." He felt assured, 
then, that they would be swayed only by a firm 
resolve to act on this occasion in obedience to the 
dictates of sound judgments and enlightened con- 
sciences. The prisoner, however, had claims on 
them, as well as the community; she was en- 
titled to a fair and impartial trial. By the wise 
and humane principles of our law, they were 
bound to hold the prisoner innocent, and she stood 
guiltless before them, until proved guilty, by le- 
gal, competent, and satisfactory evidence. Deaf 
alike to the voice of sickly humanity and heated 
prejudice, they should proceed to their task with 
minds perfectly equipoised and impartial ; they 
should weigh the circumstances of the case with 
a nice and careful hand'; and if, by legal evi- 
dence, circumstantial and satisfactory, although 
not positive, guilt be established, they should un- 
hesitatingly, fearlessly and faithfully, record the 
result of their convictions. He would next call 
their attention to certain legal distinctions, but 
would not say a word of the facts; he would 
leave them to the lips of the witnesses, unaffected 
by any previous comments of his own. The pris- 
oner stood indicted for the murder of a slave. 
This was supposed not to be murder at common 
law. At least, it was not murder by our former 
statute; hut the act of 1821 had placed the kill- 
ing of the white man and the black man on the 
same looting. He here read the act of 1821, de- 
claring that "any person who shall wilfully, de- 
liberately, and maliciously murder a slave, shall, 
on conviction thereof. Buffer death without benefit 
of clergy." The rules applicable to murder at 
common' law were generally applicable, however, 
to the present case. The inquiries to be made 
may he reduced to two: 1. Is the party charged 
guilty of the fact of killing ? This must be clearly 
mad." out by proof. If she be not guilty of kill- 
in-, there is an end of the case. 2. The charac- 
ter of that killing, or of the offence. AVas it 
done with malice aforethought? Malice is the 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



95 



essential ingredient of the crime. Where kill- 
ing takes place, malice is presumed, unless the 
contrary appear; and this must be gathered from 
the attending circumstances. Malice is a techni- 
cal term, importing a different meaning from that 
conveyed by the same word in common parlance. 
According to the learned Michael Foster, it con- 
sists not in " malevolence to particulars," it does 
not mean hatred to any particular individual, but 
is general in its import and application. But 
even killing, with intention to kill, is not always 
murder ; there may be justifiable and excusable 
homicide, and killing in sudden heat and passion 
is so modified to manslaughter. Yet there may be 
murder when there is no ill-feeling, — nay, perfect 
indifference to the slain, — as in the case of the 
robber who slays to conceal his crime. Malice 
aforethought is that depraved feeling of the heart, 
which makes one regardless of social duty, and 
fatally bent on mischief. It is fulfilled by that 
recklessness of law and human life which is indi- 
cated by shooting into a crowd, and thus doing 
murder on even an unknown object. Such a feel- 
ing the law regards as hateful, and visits, in its 
practical exhibition, with condign punishment, 
because opposed to the very existence of law and 
society. One may do fatal mischief without this 
recklessness ; but when the act is done, regard- 
less of consequences, and death ensues, it is mur- 
der in the eye of the law. If the facts to be 
proved in this case should not come uf> to these 
requisitions, he implored the jury to acquit the 
accused, as at once due to law and justice. They 
should note every fact with scrutinizing eye, and 
ascertain whether the fatal result proceeded from 
passing accident or from brooding revenge, which 
the law stamped with the odious name of malice. 
He would make no further preliminary remarks, 
but proceed at once to lay the facts before them, 
from the mouths of the witnesses. 

Evidence. 

J. Portcous Deveaux sworn. — He is the coro- 
ner of Charleston district ; held the inquest, on 
the seventh of January last, on the body of the 
deceased slave, Maria, the slave of Robert Row- 
and, at the residence of Mrs. T. C. Bee (the 
mother of the prisoner), in Logan-street. The 
body was found in an outbuilding — a kitchen; 
it was the body of an old and emaciated person, 
between fifty and sixty years of age ; it was not 
examined in his presence by physicians ; saw some 
few scratches about the face ; adjourned to the 
City Hall. Mrs. Rowand was examined ; her ex- 
amination was in writing; it was here produced, 
and read, as follows : 

" Mrs. Eliza Rowand sworn. — Says Maria is 
her nurse, and had misbehaved on yesterday morn- 
ing ; deponent sent Maria to Mr. Rowand's house, 
to be corrected by Simon ; deponent sent Maria 
from the house about seven o'clock, A. M.; she 
returned to her about nine o'clock ; came into her 
chamber ; Simon did not come into the chamber 
at any time previous to the death of Maria ; de- 
ponent says Maria fell down in the chamber ; de- 
ponent had her seated up by Richard, who was 
then in the chamber, and deponent gave Maria 
some asafcetida ; deponent then left the room ; 
Richard came down and said Maria was dead ; 
deponent says Richard did not strike Maria, nor 
did any one else strike her, in deponent's chamber. 
Richard left the chamber immediately with depo- 
nent ; Maria was about fifty-two years of age ; 



deponent sent Maria by Richard to Simon, to Mr. 
Rowand's house, to be corrected ; Mr. Rowand 
was absent from the city ; Maria died about 
twelve o'clock ; Richard and Maria were on good 
terms ; deponent was in the chamber all the while 
that Richard and Maria were there together. 

" Eliza Rowand. 
" Sworn to before me this seventh Januarv. 1847. 
" J. P. Deveaux, Coroner,' D. C." 

Witness went to the chamber of prisoner, where 
the death occurred ; saw nothing particular ; some 
pieces of wood in a box, set in the chimney ; hid 
attention was called to one piece, in particular, 
eighteen inches long, three inches wide, and about 
one and a half inch thick ; did not measure it ; 
the jury of inquest did ; it was not a light-wood 
knot ; thinks it was of oak ; there was some pine 
wood and some split oak. Dr. Peter Porcher was 
called to examine the body professionally, who 
did so out of witness' presence. 

Before this witness left the stand, B. F. Hunt, 
Esq., one of the counsel for the prisoner; rose 
and opened the defence before thf jury, in sub- 
stance as follows : 

He said that the scene before tuem was a very 
novel one ; and whether for good or evil, he would 
not pretend to prophesy. It was the first time, 
in the history of this state, that a lady of good 
character and respectable connections stood ar- 
raigned at the bar, and had been put on trial for 
her life, on facts arising out of her domestic rela- 
tions to her own slave. It was a spectacle con- 
soling, and cheering, perhaps, to those who owed 
no good will to the institutions of our country ; 
but calculated only to excite pain and regret 
among ourselves. lie would not state a proposi- 
tion so revolting to humanity as that crime should 
go unpunished ; but judicial interference between 
the slave and the owner was a matter at once of 
delicacy and danger. It was the first time he had 
ever stood between a slave-owner and the public 
prosecutor, and his "sensations were anything but 
pleasant. This is an entirely different case from 
homicide between equals in society. Subordination 
is indispensable where slavery exists ; and in this 
there is no new principle involved. The same 
principle prevails in every country ; on shipboard 
and in the army a large discretion is always left 
to the superior. Charges by inferiors against 
their superiors were always to be viewed with 
great circumspection at least, and especially when 
the latter are charged with cruelty or crime 
against subordinates. In the relation of owner 
and slave there is an absence of the usual motives 
for murder, and strong inducements against it on 
the part of the former. Life is usually taken from 
avarice or passion. The master gains nothing, 
but loses much, by the death of his slave; and 
when he takes the life of the latter deliberately, 
there must be more than ordinary malice to insti- 
gate the deed. The policy of altering the old 
law of 1740, which punished the killing of a slave 
with fine and political disfranchisement, was more 
than doubtful. It was the law of our colonial 
ancestors; it conformed to their policy and was 
approved by their wisdom, and it continued 
undisturbed by their posterity until the year 
1821. It was engrafted on our policy in counter- 
action of the schemes and machinations, or in 
deference to the clamors, of those who formed 
plans for our improvement, although not inter- 
ested in nor understanding our institutions, and 



96 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



whose interference led to the tragedy of 1822. 
He here adverted to the views of Chancellor Har- 
per on this subject, who, in his able and philosophi- 
cal memoir on slavery, said : " It is a somewhat 
singular fact, that when there existed in our state 
no law for punishing the murder of a slave, other 
than a pecuniary fine, there were, I will venture 
to say, at least ten murders of freemen for one mur- 
der of a slave. Yet it is supposed that they are 
less protected than their masters." " The change 
was made in subserviency to the opinions and 
clamor of others, who were utterly incompetent 
to form an opinion on the subject ; and a wise act 
is seldom the result of legislation in this spirit. 
From the fact I have stated, it is plain they need 
less protection. Juries are, therefore, less wil- 
ling to convict, and it may sometimes happen that 
the guilty will escape all punishment. Security 
is one of the compensations of their humble posi- 
tion. "We challenge the comparison, that with 
us there have been fewer murders of. slaves than 
of j:>arents, children, apprentices, and other mur- 
ders, cruel and unnatural, in society where slav- 
ery does not exist." 

Such was the opinion of Chancellor Harper on 
this subject, who had profoundly studied it, and 
whose views had been extensively read on this 
continent and in Europe. Fortunately, the jury, 
he said, were of the country, acquainted with our 
policy and practice ; composed of men too inde- 
pendent and honorable to be led astray by the 
noise and clamor out of doors. All was now as 
it should be; — at least, a court of justice had 
assembled, to which his client had fled for refuge 
and safety ; its threshold was sacred ; no profane 
clamors entered there ; but legal investigation 
was had of facts, derived from the testimony of 
sworn witnesses ; and this should teach the 
community to shut their bosoms against sickly 
humanity, and their ears to imaginary tales of 
blood and horror, the food of a depraved appetite. 
He warned the jury that they were to listen to no 
testimony but that of free white persons, given on 
oath in open court. They were to imagine none 
that came not from them. It was for this 
that they were selected, — their intelligence 
putting them beyond the influence of unfound- 
ed accusations, unsustained by legal proof; 
of legends of aggravated cruelty, founded on the 
evidence of negroes, and arising from weak and 
wicked falsehoods. Were slaves permitted to 
testify against their owner, it would cut the cord 
that unites them in peace and harmony, and 
ciiable them to sacrifice their masters to their ill 
will or revenge. Whole crews had been often 
Leagued to charge captains of vessels with foulest 
murder, but judicial trial had exposed the false- 
hood. Truth has been distorted in this casr, and 
murder manufactured out of what was nothing 
more than ordinary domestic discipline. Chastise- 
ment must lie inflicted until subordination is pro- 
duced ; and flic extent of the punishment is not 
to ''judged of by one's neighbors, but by himself. 
The evenl in this ease has been unfortunate and 
sad ; but there was no motive for the taking of 
life. There is no pecuniary interest in the owner 
to destroy his slave ; the murder of bis slave 
can only happen from ferocious passions of the 
master, filling his own bosom with anguish and 
contrition. This ease has no other basis but un- 
founded rumor, commonly believed, on evidence 
thai in/,' mil venture here, the offspring of that pas- 
sion and depravity which make up falsehood. 



The hope of freedom, of change of owners, revenge, 
are all motives with slave witnesses to malign their 
owners ; and to credit such testimony would be to 
dissolve human society. "Where deliberate, wilful, 
and malicious murder is done, whether by male 
or female, the retribution of the law is a debt to 
God and man ; but the jury should beware lest it 
fall upon the innocent. The offence charged was 
not strictly murder at common law. The act of 
1740 was founded on the practical good sense of 
our old planters, and its spirit still prevails. The 
act of 1821 is, by its terms, an act only to in- 
crease the punishment of persons convicted of 
murdering a slave, — and this is a refinement in hu- 
manity of doubtful policy. But, by the act of 1821, 
the murder must be wilful, deliberate and mali- 
cious ; and, when punishment is due to the slave, 
the master must not be held to strict account for 
going an inch beyond the mark ; whether for doing 
so he shall be a felon, is a question for the jury to 
solve. The master must conquer a refractory 
slave ; and deliberation, so as to render clear the 
existence of malice, is necessary to "Taring the 
master within the provision of the act. He bade 
the jury remember the words of Him who spake 
as never man spake, — " Let him that has never 
sinned throw the first stone.'''' They, as masters, 
might regret excesses to ichich they have themselves 
carried punishment. He was not at all surprised 
at the course of the attorney-general ; it was his 
wont to treat every case with perfect fairness. He 
(Colonel H.) agreed that the inquiry should be — 

1. Into the fact of the death. 

2. The character or motive of the act. 

The examination of the prisoner showed con 
clusively that the slave died a natural death, and 
not from personal violence. She was chastised 
with a lawful weapon, — was in w r eak health, ner- 
vous, made angry by her punishment, — excited. 
The story was then a plain one ; the community 
had been misled by the creations of imagination, 
or the statements of interested slaves. The negro 
came into her mistress' chamber ; fell on the 
floor ; medicine was given her ; it was supposed 
she was asleep, but she slept the sleep of death. 
To show the wisdom and policy of the old act of 
1740 (this indictment is under both acts, — the 
punishment only altered by that of 1821), he 
urged that a case like this was not murder at 
common law ; nor is the same evidence applicable 
at common law. There, murder was presumed 
from killing ; not so in the case of a slave. The 
act of 1740 permits a master, when his slave is 
killed in his presence, there being no other white 
person present, to exculpate himself by his own 
oath ; and this exculpation is complete, unless 
clearly contravened by the evidence of two white 
witnesses. This is exactly what the prisoner has 
done ; she has, as the law permits, by calling or. 
Cod, exculpated herself. And her oath is good, 
at least against the slander of her own slaves. 
Which, then, should prevail, the clamors of Oth- 
ers, or the policy of the law established by our 
colonial ancestors' There would not be a tittle 
of positive evidence against the prisoner, nothing 
but circumstantial eviden.ee ; and ingenious com- 
bination might be made to lead to any conclusion. 
Justice was all that his client asked. She ap- 
pealed to liberal and high-minded men, — and she 
rejoiced in the privilege of doing so,— to accord 
her that justice they would demand for them- 
selves. 

Mr. Deveaux was not cross-examined. 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



97 



Evidence resumed. 

Dr. E. W. North sworn. — (Cautioned by at- 
torney-general to avoid hearsay evidence.) Was 
the family physician of Mrs. Rowand. Went on 
the 6th January, at Mrs. Rowand's request, to 
see her at her mother's, in Logan-street ; found 
her down stairs, in sitting-room. She was in a 
nervous and excited state ; had been so for a 
month before ; he had attended her ; she said 
nothing to witness of slave Maria ; found Maria 
in a chamber, up stairs, about one o'clock, P. M. ; 
she was dead ; she appeared to have been dead 
about an hour and a half; his attention was 
attracted to a piece of pine wood on a trunk or 
table in the room ; it had a large knot on one end ; 
had it been used on Maria, it must have caused 
considerable contusion ; other pieces of wood were 
in a box, and much smaller ones ; the corpse was 
lying one side in the chamber ; it was not laid 
out ; presumed she died there ; the marks on the 
body were, to witness' view, very slight ; some 
scratches about the face ; he purposely avoided 
making an examination ; observed no injuries 
about the head ; had no conversation with Mrs. 
Rowand about Maria ; left the house ; it was on 
the 6th January last, — the day before the in- 
quest ; knew the slave before, but had never 
attended her. 

Cross-examined. — Mrs. Rowand was in feeble 
health, and nervous ; the slave Maria was weak 
and emaciated in appearance ; sudden death of 
such a person, in such a state, from apoplexy or 
action of nervous system, not unlikely; her sud- 
den death would not imply violence; had pre- 
scribed asafcetida .for Mrs-. Rowand on a former 
visit ; it is an appropriate remedy for nervous 
disorders. Mrs. Rowand was not of bodily strength 
to handle the pine knot so as to give a severe 
blow ; Mrs. Rowand has five or six children, the 
elder of them large enough to have carried pieces 
of the wood about the room ; there must have 
been a severe contusion, and much extravasation 
of blood, to infer death from violence in this case ; 
apoplexy is frequently attended with extravasa- 
tion of blood ; there were two Marias ia the fam- 
ily. 

In reply. — Mrs. Rowand could have raised the 
pine knot, but could not have struck a blow with 
it ; such a piece of wood could have produced 
death, but it would have left its mark ; saw the 
fellow Richard ; he was quite capable of giving 
such a blow. 

Dr. Peter Porcher. — Was called in by the coro- 
ner's jury to examine Maria's body ; found it in 
the wash-kitchen ; it was the corpse of one feeble 
and emaciated ; partly prepared for burial ; had 
the clothes removed ; the body was lacerated with 
stripes ; abrasions about face and knuckles ; skin 
knocked off; passed his hand over the head ; no 
bone broken ; on request, opened her thorax, and 
examined the viscera ; found them healthy ; heart 
unusually so for one of her age ; no particular 
odor ; some undigested food ; no inflammation ; 
removed the scalp, and found considerable extrav- 
asation between scalp and skull ; scalp bloodshot ; 
just under the scalp, found the effects of a single 
blow, just over the right ear ; after removing the 
scalp, lifted the bone ; no rupture of any blood- 
vessel ; some softening of the brain in the upper 
hemisphere ; there was considerable extravasation 
under the scalp, the result of a succession of blows 
on the top of the head ; this extravasation was 
general, but that over the ear was a single spot ; 

7 



the butt-end of a cowhide would have sufficed for 
this purpose ; an ordinary stick, a heavy one, 
would have done it ; a succession of blows on the 
head, in a feeble woman, would lead to death, 
when, in a stronger one, it would not ; saw no 
other appearance about her person, to account for 
her death, except those blows. 

Cross-examined. — To a patient in this wo- 
man's condition, the blows would probably cause 
death ; they were not such as were calculated to 
kill an ordinary person ; witness saw the body 
twenty-four hours after her death ; it was winter, 
and bitter cold ; no disorganization, and the ex- 
amination was therefore to be relied on ; the blow 
behind the ear might have resulted from a fall, 
but not the blow on the top of the head, unless 
she fell head foremost ; came to the conclusion of 
a succession of blows, from the extent of the ex- 
travasation ; a single blow would have shown a 
distinct spot, with a gradual spreading or diffu- 
sion ; one large blow could not account for it, as 
the head was spherical ; no blood on the brain ; 
the softening of the brain did not amount to much : 
in an ordinary dissection would have passed it 
over ; anger sometimes produces apoplexy, which 
results in death ; blood between the scalp and the 
bone of the skull ; it was evidently a fresh extrav- 
asation ; twenty-four hours would scarcely have 
made any change ; knew nothing of this negro 
before ; even after examination, the cause of 
death is sometimes inscrutable, — not usual, how- 
ever. 

In reply. — Does not attribute the softening of 
the brain to the blows ; it was slight, and might 
have been the result of age ; it was some evidence 
of impairment of vital powers by advancing age. 

Dr. A. P. Hayne. — At request of the coroner, 
acted with Dr. Porcher ; was shown into an out- 
house ; saw on the back of the corpse evidences of 
contusion ; arms swollen and enlarged ; lacera- 
tion of body ; contusions on head and neck ; be- 
tween scalp and skull extravasation of blood, on 
the top of head, and behind the right ear ; a burn 
on the hand ; the brain presented healthy appear- 
ance ; opened the body, and no evidences of disease 
in the chest or viscera ; attributed the extravasa- 
tion of blood to external injury from blows, — 
blows from a large and broad and blunt instru- 
ment ; attributes the death to those blows ; sup- 
poses they were adequate to cause death, as she 
was old, weak and emaciated. 

Cross-examined. — Would not have caused death 
in a young and robust person. 

The evidence for the prosecution here closed, 
and no witnesses were called for the defence. 

The jury were then successively addressed, ably 
and eloquently, by J. L. Petigru and James 8. 
Rhett, Esqr-s., on behalf of the prisoner, and H. 
Bailey, Esq., on behalf of the state, and by B. F. 
Hunt, Esq., in reply. Of those speeches, and 
also of the judge's charge, we have taken full 
notes, but have neither time nor space to insert 
them here. 

His Honor, Judge O'Neall, then charged the 
jury eloquently and ably on the facts, vindicating 
the existing law, making death the penalty for 
the murder of a slave ; but, on the law, intimated 
to the jury that he held the act of 1740 so far still 
in force as to admit of the prisoner's exculpation 
by her own oath, unless clearly disproved by the 
oaths of two witnesses ; ana that they were, 
therefore, in his opinion, bound to acquit, — 
although he left it to them, wholly, to say wheth- 



98 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 



er the prisoner was guilty of murder, killing in 
sudden heat and passion, or not guilty. 

The jury then retired, and, in about twenty or 
thirty minutes, returned with a verdict of "Not 
Guilty." 

There are some points which appear in 
this statement of the trial, especially in the 
plea for the defence. Particular attention 
is called to the following passage : 

"Fortunately," said the lawyer, "the jury 
were of the country ; — acquainted with our policy 
ftD .* practice ; composed of men too honorable to 
be 'jhI astray by the noise and clamor out of doors. 
All was now as it should be ; at least, a court of 
justice had assembled to which his client had fled 
for refuge and safety ; its threshold was sacred ; 
no profane, clamors entered there ; but legal investi- 
gation was had of facts." 

From this it plainly appears that the case 
was a notorious one ; so notorious and atro- 
cious as to break through all the apathy 
which slave-holding institutions tend to pro- 
duce, and to surround the court-house with 
noise and clamor. 

From another intimation in the same 
speech, it would appear that there was abun- 
dant testimony of slaves to the direct fact,— 
testimony which left no kind of doubt on the 
popular mind. Why else does he thus 
earnestly warn the jury ? 

He warned the jury that they were to listen 
to no evidence but that of free white persons, 
given on oath in open court ; they were to imag- 
ine none that came not from them. It was for 
this that they were selected ; — their intelligence 
putting them beyond the influence of unfounded 
accusations, unsustained by legal proof; of legends 
of aggravated cruelty, founded on the evidence of 
negroes, and arising from weak and wicked false- 
hoods. 

See also this remarkable admission : — 
" Truth had been distorted in this case, and 
murder manufactured out of what was 
nothing more than ordinary domestic 
discipline." If the reader refers to the tes- 
timony, ho will find it testified that the 
woman appeared to be about sixty years 
old; that she was much emaciated; that 
there had been a succession of blows on the 
top of her head, and one violent one over the 
ear ; and that, in the opinion of a sur- 
geon, these blows were sufficient to cause 
death. Yet the lawyer for the defence 
coolly remarks that " murder had been 
manufactured out of what was ordinary 
domestic discipline." Are we to under- 
stand that beating feeble old women on the 
head, in this manner, is a specimen of ordi- 
nary domestic discijjline in Charleston? 



What would have been said if any anti- 
slavery newspaper at the North had made 
such an assertion as this ? Yet the Charles- 
ton Courier reports this statement without 
comment or denial. But let us hear the 
lady's lawyer go still further in vindication 
of this ordinary domestic discipline : "Chas- 
tisement must be inflicted until subordina- 
tion is produced ; and the extent of the pun- 
ishment is not to be judged by one's neigh- 
bors, but by himself. The event, in this 
case, has been unfortunate and sad." The 
lawyer admits that the result of thumping 
a feeble old woman on the head has, in this 
case, been "unfortunate and sad." The 
old thing had not strength to bear it, and 
had no greater regard for the convenience 
of the family, and the reputation of " the 
institution," than to die, and so get the 
family and the community generally into 
trouble. It will appear from this that in 
most cases where old women are thumped 
on the head they have stronger constitutions 
— or more consideration. 

Again he says, "When punishment is 
due to the slave, the master must not be 
held to strict account for going an inch 
beyond the mark." And finally, and most 
astounding of all, comes this: " He bade 
the jury remember the words of him who 
spake as never man spake, — ' Let him 

THAT HATH NEVER SINNED THROW THE 

first stone.' They, as masters, might 
regret excesses to which they themselves 
might have carried punishment." 

What sort of an insinuation is this ? 
Did he mean to say that almost all the jury- 
men had probably done things of the same 
sort, and therefore could have nothing to 
say in this case ? and did no member of the 
jury get up and resent such a charge? 
From all that appears, the jury acquiesced 
in it as quite a matter of course ; and the 
Charleston Courier quotes it without com- 
ment, in the record of a trial which it says 
"will show to the world now the law ex- 
tends the oegis of her protection alike over 
the white man and the humblest slave." 

Lastly, notice the decision of the judge, 
which has become law in South Carolina. 
What point does it establish? That the 
simple oath of the master, in face of all cir- 
cumstantial evidence to the contrary, may 
clear him, when the murder of a slave is the 
question. And this trial is paraded as a 
triumphant specimen of legal impartiality 
and equity ! "If the light that is in thee 
be darkness, how great is that darkness !" 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



99 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE GOOD OLD TIMES. 

W A refinement in humanity of doubtful policy." 

B. F. Hunt. 

The author takes no pleasure in present- 
ing to her readers the shocking details of 
the following case. But it seems necessary 
to exhibit what were the actual workings 
of the ancient law of South Carolina, which 
has been characterized as one "conformed 
to the policy, and approved by the wisdom," 
of the fathers of that state, and the reform 
of which has been called " a refinement in 
humanity of doubtful policy." 

It is well, also, to add the charge of 
Judge Wilds, partly for its intrinsic liter- 
ary merit, and the nobleness of its senti- 
ments, but principally because it exhibits 
such a contrast as could scarcely be found 
elsewhere, between the judge's high and 
indignant sense of justice, and the shameful 
impotence and imbecility of the laws under 
which he acted. 

The case was brought to the author's 
knowledge by a letter from a gentleman of 
Pennsylvania, from which the following is 
an extract : 

Some time between the years 1807 and 1810, 
there was lying in the harbor of Charleston a 
ship commanded by a man named Slater. His 
crew were slaves : one of them committed some 
offence, not specified in the narrative. The cap- 
tain ordered him to be bound and laid upon the 
deck ; and there, in the harbor of Charleston, in 
the broad day-light, compelled another slave- 
sailor to chop off his head. The affair was pub- 
lic — notorious. A prosecution was commenced 
against him ; the offence was proved beyond all 
doubt, — perhaps, indeed, it was not denied, — 
and the judge, in a most eloquent charge or 
rebuke of the defendant, expressed his sincere 
regret that he could inflict no punishment, under 
the laws of the state. 

I was studying law when the "case was pub- 
lished in " Hall's American Law Journal, vol. i." 
[ have not seen the book for twenty-five or thirty 
years. I -may be in error as to names, &c., but 
while I have life and my senses the facts of the 
case cannot be forgotten. 

The following is the "charge" alluded 
to in the above letter. It was pronounced 
by the Honorable Judge Wilds, of South 
Carolina, and is copied from Hall's Law 
Journal, I. 67. 

John Slater ! You have been convicted by a 
jury of your country of the wilful murder of your 
own slave ; and I am sorry to say, the short, 
impressive, uncontradicted testimony, on which 
that conviction was founded, leaves but too little 
room to doubt its propriety. 

The annals of human depravity might be safely 



challenged for a parallel to this unfeeling, bloody 
and diabolical transaction. 

You caused your unoffending, unresisting slave 
to be bound hand and foot, and, by a refinement 
in cruelty, compelled his companion, perhaps the 
friend of his heart, to chop his head with an 
axe, and to cast his body, yet convulsing with the 
agonies of death, into the water ! And this deed 
you dared to perpetrate in the very harbor of 
Charleston, within a few yards of the shore, un- 
blushingly, in the face of open day. Had your 
murderous arm been raised against your equals, 
whom the laws of self-defence and the more effi- 
cacious law of the land unite to protect, your 
crimes would not have been without precedent, 
and would have seemed less horrid. Your per- 
sonal risk would at least have proved, that though 
a murderer, you were not a coward. But you too 
well knew that this unfortunate man, whom chance 
had subjected to your caprice, had not, like your- 
self, chartered to him by the laws of the land the 
'sacred rights of nature ; and that a stern, but 
necessary policy, had disarmed him of the rights 
of self-defence/ Too well you knew that to you 
alone he could look for protection ; and that your 
arm alone could shield him from oppression, or 
avenge his wrongs ; yet, that arm you cruelly 
stretched out for his destruction. 

The counsel, who generously volunteered his 
services in your behalf, shocked at the enormity 
oC your offence, endeavored to find a refuge, as 
well for his own feelings as for those of all who 
heard your trial, in a derangement of your intel- 
lect. Several witnesses were examined to estab- 
lish this fact ; but the result of their testimony, it 
is apprehended, was as little satisfactory to his 
mind, as to those of the jury to whom it was 
addressed. I sincerely wish this defence had 
proved successful, not from any desire to save 
you from the punishment which awaits you, and 
which you so richly merit, but from the desire of 
saving my country from the foul reproach of hav- 
ing in its bosom so great a monster. 

From the peculiar situation of this country, our 
fathers felt themselves justified in subjecting to a 
very slight punishment him who murders a slave. 
Whether the present state of society require a 
continuation of this policy, so opposite to the 
apparent rights of humanity, it remains for a 
subsequent legislature to decide. Their attention 
would ere this have been directed to this subject, 
but, for the honor of human nature, such hardened 
sinners as yourself are rarely found, to disturb the 
repose of society. The grand jury of this district, 
deeply impressed with your daring outrage against 
the laws both of God and man, have made a very 
strong expression of their feelings on the subject 
to the legislature ; and, from the wisdom and jus- 
tice of that body, the friends of humanity may 
confidently hope soon to see this blackest in the 
catalogue of human crimes pursued by appropri- 
ate punishment. 

In proceeding to pass the sentence which the 
law provides for your offence, I confess I never 
felt more forcibly the want of power to make 
respected the laws of my country, whose minister 
I am. You have already violated the majesty of 
those laws. You have profanely pleaded the law 
under which you stand convicted, as a justifica- 
tion of your crime. You have held that law in 
one hand, and brandished your bloody axe in the 
other, impiously contending that the one gave a 
license to the unrestrained use of the other. 



100 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



But, though you will go off unhurt in person, 
by the present sentence, expect not to escape with 
impunity. Your bloody deed has set a mark upon 
you, which I fear the good actions of your future 
life will not efface. You will be held in abhor- 
rence by an impartial world, and shunned as a 
monster by every honest man. Your unoffending 
posterity will be visited, for your iniquity, by the 
stigma of deriving their origin from an unfeeling 
murderer. Your days, which will be but few, 
will be spent in wretchedness ; and, if your con- 
science be not steeled against every virtuous emo- 
tion, if you be not entirely abandoned to hardness 
of heart, the mangled, mutilated corpse of your 
murdered slave will ever be present in your imag- 
ination, obtrude itself into all your amusements, 
and haunt you in the hours of silence and repose. 

But, should you disregard the reproaches of an 
offended world, should you hear with callous 
insensibility the gnawings of a guilty conscience, 
yet remember, I charge you, remember, that an 
awful period is fast approaching, and with you 
is close at hand, when you must appear before a 
tribunal whose want of power can afford you no 
prospect of impunity ; when you must raise your 
bloody hands at the bar of an impartial omni- 
scient Judge ! Remember, I pray you, remem- 
ber, whilst yet you have time, that God is just, 
and that his vengeance will not sleep forever ! 

The penalty that followed this solemn 
denunciation was a fine of seven hundred 
pounds, current money, or, in default of 
payment, imprisonment for seven years. 

And yet it seems that there have not 
been wanting those who consider the reform 
of this law " a refinement in humanity of 
doubtful policy" ! To this sentiment, so 
high an authority as that of Chancellor 
Harper is quoted, as the reader will see by 
referring to the speech of Mr. Hunt, in the 
last chapter. And, as is very common in 
such cases, the old law is vindicated, as 
being, on the whole, a surer protection to 
the life of the slave than the new one. 
From the results of the last two trials, there 
would seem to be a fair show of plausibility 
in the argument. For under the old law it 
seems that Slater had at least to pay seven 
hundred pounds, while under the new Eliza 
Ho wand comes off with only the penalty of 
"a most sifting scrutiny." 

Thus, it appears, the penalty of the law 
goes with the murderer of the slave. 

How is it executed in the cases which 
concern the life of the master? Look at 
this short notice of a recent trial of this kind, 
which is given in the Alexandria (Va.) 
Gazette, of Oct. 23, 1852, as an extract 
from the Charlestown (Va.) Free Press. 

TRIAL OF NEGRO HENRY. 

The trial of this slave for an attack, with in- 
tent to kill, on the person of Mr. Harrison An- 
derson, was commenced on Monday and concluded 
©n Tuesday evening, llis llonor, Braxton Daven- 



port, Esq., chief justice of the county, with four 
associate gentlemen justices, composed the court 
The commonwealth was represented by its at- 
torney, Charles B. Harding, Esq., and the ac- 
cused ably and eloquently defended by Win. C. 
Worthington and John A. Thompson, Esqs. The 
evidence of the prisoner's guilt was conclusiye. 
A majority of the court thought that he ought to 
suffer the extreme penalty of tho law ; but, as this 
required a unanimous agreement, he was sen- 
tenced to receive five hundred lashes, not more 
than thirty-nine at one time. The physician of 
the jail was instructed to see that they should not 
be administered too frequently, and only when, 
in his opinion, he could bear them. 

In another paper we are told that the 
Free Press says : 

A majority of the court thought that he ought 
to suffer the extreme penalty of the law ; but, as 
this required a unanimous agreement, he was 
sentenced to receive five hundred lashes, not more 
than thirty-nine at any one time. The physician 
of the jail was instructed to see that they should 
not be administered too frequently, and only 
when, in his opinion, he could bear them. This 
may seem to be a harsh and inhuman punishment ; 
but, when we take into consideration that it is in 
accordance with the law of the land, and the fur- 
ther fact that the insubordination among the 
slaves of that state has become truly alarming, 
we cannot question the righteousness of the judg- 
ment. 

Will anybody say that the master's life 
is in more danger from the slave than the 
slave's from the master, that this dispro- 
portionate retribution is meted out ? Those 
who countenance such legislation will do 
well to ponder the solemn words of an an- 
cient book, inspired by One who is no 
respecter of persons : 

" If I have refused justice to my man-servant or maid- 
servant, 
When they had a cause with me, 
What shall I do when God riseth up 1 
And when be visiteth, what shall I answer him 1 
Did not he that made me in the womb make him 1 
Did not tho same God fashion us in the womb ! " 

Jon 31 : 13—15. 



CHAPTER IX. 

MODERATE CORRECTION AND ACCIDENTAL 
DEATH — STATE V. CASTLEMAN. 

The author remarks that the record of 
the following trial was read by her a little 
time before writing the account of the death 
of Uncle Tom. The shocking particulars 
haunted her mind and were in her thoughts 
when the following sentence was -written : 

What man has nerve to do, man has not nerve 
to hear. What brother man and brother Christian 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



101 



must suffer, cannot be told us, even in our secret 
chamber, it so harrows up the soul. And yet, 
my country, these things are done under the 
shadow of thy laws ! Christ, thy church sees 
them almost in silence ! 

It is given precisely as prepared by Dr. 
G. Bailey, the very liberal and fair-minded 
editor of the National Era. 

From the National Era, Washington, November 6, 1851. 
HOMICIDE CASE IN CLARKE COUNTY, VIRGINIA. 

Some time since, the newspapers of Virginia 
contained an account of a horrible tragedy, enacted 
in Clarke County, of that state. A slave of 
Colonel James Castleman, it was stated, had been 
chained by the neck, and whipped to death by his 
master, on the charge of stealing. The whole 
neighborhood in which the transaction occurred 
was incensed ; the Virginia papers abounded in 
denunciations of the cruel act ; and the people 
of the North were called upon to bear witness to 
the justice which would surely be meted out in a 
slave state to the master of a slave. We did not 
publish the account. The case was horrible ; it 
was, we were confident, exceptional ; it should 
not be taken as evidence of the general treatment 
of slaves ; we chose to delay any notice of it till 
the courts should pronounce their judgment, and 
we could announce at once the crime and its pun- 
ishment, so that the state might stand acquitted 
of the foul deed. 

Those who were so shocked at the transaction 
will be surprised and mortified to hear that the 
actors in it have been tried and acquitted; and 
when they read the following account of the trial 
and verdict, published at the instance of the 
friends of the accused, their mortification will 
deepen into bitter indignation : 

From the "Spirit of Jefferson.'" 

"Colonel James Castleman. — The following 
statement, understood to have been drawn up by 
counsel, since the trial, has been placed by the 
friends of this gentleman in our hands for publi- 
cation : 

" At the Circuit Superior Court of Clarke 
County, commencing on the 13th of October, 
Judge Samuels presiding, James Castleman and 
his son Stephen D. Castleman were indicted 
jointly for the murder of negro Lewis, property of 
the latter. By advice of their counsel, the parties 
elected to be tried separately, and the attorney 
for the commonwealth directed that James Cas- 
tleman should be tried first. 

" It was proved, on this trial, that for many 
months previous to the occurrence the money- 
drawer of the tavern kept by Stephen D. Castleman, 
and the liquors kept in large quantities in his cellar, 
had been pillaged from time to time, until the thefts 
had attained to a considerable amount. Suspicion 
had, from various causes, been directed to Lewis, 
and another negro, named Reuben (a blacksmith) , 
the property of James Castleman ; but by the aid 
of two of the house-servants they had eluded the 
most vigilant watch. 

" On the 20th of August last, in the afternoon, 
S. D. Castleman accidentally discovered a clue, 
by means of which, and through one of the house- 
servants implicated, he was enabled fully to de- 
tect the depredators, and to ascertain the manner 
in which the theft had been committed. He im- 



mediately sent for his father, living near him, and 
after communicating what he had discovered, it 
was determined that the offenders should be pun- 
ished at once, and before they should know of the 
discovery that had been made. 

" Lewis was punished first ; and in a manner, as 
was fully shown, to preclude all risk of injury to 
his person, by stripes with a broad leathern strap. 
He was punished severely, but to an extent by no 
means disproportionate to his offence ; nor was it 
pretended, in any quarter, that this punishment 
implicated either his life or health. He confessed 
the ofience, and admitted that it had been effected 
by false keys, furnished by the blacksmith, Reu- 
ben. 

" The latter servant was punished immediately 
afterwards. It was believed that he was the 
principal offender, and he was found to be more 
obdurate and contumacious than Lewis had been 
in reference to the offence. Thus it was proved, 
both by the prosecution and the defence, that he 
was punished with greater severity than his ac- 
complice. It resulted in a like confession on his 
part, and he produced the false key, one fashioned 
by himself, by which the theft had been effected . 
" It was further shown, on the trial, that Lewis 
was whipped in the upper room of a warehouse, 
connected with Stephen Castleman's store, and 
near the public road, where he was at work at the 
time ; that after he had been flogged, to secure 
his person, whilst they went after Reuben, lie was 
confined by a chain around his neck, which was 
attached to a joist above his head. The length of 
this chain, the breadth and thickness of the joist, 
its height from the floor, and the circlet of chain 
on the neck, were accurately measured ; and it 
was thus shown that the chain unoccupied by the 
circlet and the joist was a foot and a half longer 
than the space between the shoulders of the man 
and the joist above, or to that extent the chain 
hung loose above him ; that the circlet (which was 
fastened so as to prevent its contraction) rested 
on the shoulders and breast, the chain being suf- 
ficiently drawn only to prevent being slipped over 
his head, and that there was no other place in the 
room to which he could be fastened, except to one 
of the joists above. His hands were tied in front ; 
a white man, who had been at work with Lewis 
during the day, was left with him by the Messrs. 
Castleman, the better to insure his detention, whilst 
they were absent after Reuben. It was proved by 
this man (who was a witness for the prosecution) 
that Lewis asked for a box to stand on, or for 
something that he could jump off from ; that after 
the Castlemans had left him he expressed a fear 
that when they came back he would be whipped 
again ; and said, if he had a knife, and couldget 
one hand loose, he would cut his throat. The 
witness stated that the negro ' stood firm on his 
feet,' that he could turn freely in whatever di- 
rection he wished, and that he made no complaint 
of the mode of his confinement. This man stated 
that he remained with Lewis about half an hour, 
and then left there to go home. 

" After punishing Reuben, the Castlemans re- 
turned to the warehouse, bringing him with them ; 
their object being to confront the two men, in the 
hope that by further examination of them jointly 
all their accomplices might be detected. 

" They were not absent more than half an hour. 
When they entered the room above, Lewis was 
found hanging by the neck, his feet thrown behind 



102 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S' CABIN. 



him his knees a few inches from the floor, and his j on the testimony of a house-servant, the nature of 
head thrown forward — the body warm and sup- which does not appear to have been inquired into 
pie (or relaxed), but life was extinct. by the court ! Not a word is said which au- 

» It was proved by the surgeons who made a post- 1 thorizes the belief that any careful examination 
mortem examination before the coroner's inquest ' was made, as it respects their guilt. Lewis and 
that the death was caused by strangulation by j Reuben were assumed, on loose evidence, without 
hanging ; and other eminent surgeons were ex- I deliberate investigation, to be guilty ; and then, 
amined to show, from the appearance of the brain | without allowing them to attempt to show their 



and its blood-vessels after death (as exhibited at 
the post-mortem examination), that the subject 
could not have fainted before strangulation. 

" After the evidence was finished on both sides, 
the jury from their box, and of their own motion, 
without a word from counsel on either side, in- 
formed the court that they had agreed upon their 
verdict. The counsel assented to its being thus 
received, and a verdict of " not guilty " was im- 
mediately rendered. The attorney for the com- 
monwealth then informed the court that all the 
evidence for the prosecution had been laid before 
the jury ; and as no new evidence could be offered 
on the trial of Stephen D. Castleman, he sub- 
mitted to the court the propriety of entering a 
nolle prosequi. The judge replied that the case had 
been fully and fairly laid before the jury upon the 
evidence"; that the court was not only satisfied 
with thp verdict, but, if any other had been ren- 
dered, it must have been set aside ; and that if no 
further evidence was to be adduced on the trial of 
Stephen, the attorney for the commonwealth 
would exercise a proper discretion in entering a 
nolle prosequi as to him, and the court would ap- 
prove its being done. A nolle prosequi was en- 
tered accordingly, and both gentlemen discharged. 

" It may be added that two days were consumed 
in exhibiting the evidence, and that the trial was 
by a jury of Clarke County. Both the parties 
had been on bail from the time of their arrest, and 
were continued on bail whilst the trial was de- 
pending." 



Let us admit that the evidence does not prove 
the legal crime of homicide : what candid man 
can doubt, after reading this ex parte version of it, 
that the slave died in consequence of the punish- 
ment inflicted upon him? 

In criminal prosecutions the federal constitu- 
tion guarantees to the accused the right to a pub- 
lic trial by an impartial jury ; the right to be 
informed of the nature and cause of the accusa- 
tion ; to be confronted with the witnesses against 
him ; to have compulsory process for obtaining 
witness in his favor ; and to have the assistance 
of counsel; guarantees necessary to secure inno- 
cence against hasty or vindictive judgment, — ab- 
solutely necessary to prevent injustice. Grant that 
they were not intended for slaves ; every master of 
a slave must feel that they arc still morally bind- 
ing upon him. He is the sole judge : he alum' 
determines the offence, the proof requisite to es- 
tablish it, and the amount of the punishment. 
The slave then has a peculiar claim upon him for 
justice. When charged with a crime, common 
humanity requires that he should be informed of 
it, that he Bhould be confronted with the witnesses 
against him, that he should be permitted to show 
evidence in favor of his innocence. 

But how was poor Lewis treated? The son of 
Castleman said he had discovered who stole the 
money; and it was forthwith " determined that 
the offenders should be punished at once, and be- 
fore t/u v should know of the discovery that had been 



evidence, they were whipped, until a confession 
of guilt was extorted by bodily pain. 
Is this Virginia justice 1 

Lewis was punished with " a broad leathern 
strap," — he was " punished severely :" this Ave 
do not need to be told. A " broad leathern strap" 
is well adapted to severity of punishment. " Nor 
was it pretended," the account says, " in any 
quarter, that this punishment implicated either 
his life or his health." This is false ; it was ex- 
pressly stated in the newspaper accounts at the 
time, and such was the general impression in the 
neighborhood, that the punishment did very se- 
verely implicate his life. But more of this anon. 
Lewis was left. A chain was fastened around 
his neck, so as not to choke him, and secured to 
the joist above, leaving a slack of about a foot and 
a half. Remaining in an upright position, he was 
secure against strangulation, but he could neither 
sit nor kneel ; and should he faint, he would be 
choked to death. The account says that they 
fastened him thus for the purpose of securing 
him. If this had been the sole object, it could 
have been accomplished by safer and less cruel 
methods, as every reader must know. This mode 
of securing him was intended probably to intimi- 
date him, and, at the same time, afforded some 
gratification to the vindictive feeling which con- 
trolled the actors in this foul transaction. The 
man whom they left to watch Lewis said that, 
after remaining there about half an hour, he went 
home ; and Lewis was then alive. The Castle- 
mans say that, after punishing Reuben, they re- 
turned, having been absent not more than half an 
hour, and they found him hanging by the neck, 
dead. We direct attention to this part of the 
testimony , to show how loose the statements were 
which went to make up the evidence. 

Why was Lewis chained at all, and a man left 
to watch him ? "To secure him," say the Castle- 
mans. Is it customary to chain slaves in this 
manner, and set a watch over them, after severe 
punishment, to prevent their running away 1 If 
the punishment of Lewis had not been unusual, 
and if he had not been threatened with another 
infliction on their return, there would have been 
no necessity for chaining him. 

The testimony of the man left to watch repre- 
sents him as desperate, apparently , with pain and 
fright. "Lewis asked ior a box to stand on :" 
why ? Was he not suffering from pain and ex- 
haustion, and did he not Wish to rest himself, 
without danger of slow strangulation] Again: 
he asked for u something he could jump off from;" 
" alter the Castlemans left, he expressed a fear 
when they came hack that he would be whipped 
again ; and said, if lie had a knife, and could got 
one hand Loose, he would cut his throat." 

The punishment that could drive him to such 
desperation must have been horrible. 

How long they were absent we know not, for 
the testimony on this point is contradictory. 
They found him hanging by the neck, dead, " his 
feet thrown behind him, his knees a few inches 



made:' 1 Punished without a hearing ! Punished 1 from the floor, and his head thrown forward," — 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



103 



just the position he would naturally foil into, had 
he sunk from exhaustion. They wish it to appear 
that he hung himself. Could this be proved (we 
need hardly say that it is not), it would relieve 
but slightly the dark picture of their guilt. The 
probability is that he sank, exhausted by suffering, 
Fatigue and fear. As to the testimony of " sur- 
geons," founded upon a post-mortem examination 
of the brain and blood-vessels, " that the subject 
could not have fainted before strangulation," it is 
not worthy of consideration. We know some- 
thing of the fallacies and fooleries of such ex- 
aminations. 

From all we can learn, the only evidence relied 
cm by the prosecution was that white man em- 
ployed by the Castlemans. He was dependent 
upon them for work. Other evidence might have 
been obtained ; why it was not is for the prosecut- 
ing attorney to explain. To prove what we say, 
and to show that justice has not been done in this 
horrible affair, we publish the following commu- 
nication from an old and highly-respectable citizen 
of this place, and who is very far from being an 
Abolitionist. The slave-holders whom he men- 
tions are well known here, and would have 
promptly appeared in the case, had the prosecu- 
tion, which was aware of their readiness, sum- 
moned them. 

" To the Editor of the Era: 

" I see that Castleman, who lately had a trial 
for whipping a slave to death, in Virginia, was 
' triumphantly acquitted,'' — as many expected. 
There are three persons in this city, with whom I 
am acquainted, who staid at Castleman's the 
same night in which this awful tragedy was 
enacted. They heard the dreadful lashing and 
the heart-rending screams and entreaties of the 
sufferer. They implored the only white man they 
could find on the premises, not engaged in the 
bloody work, to interpose ; but for a long time he 
refused, on the ground that he was a dependent, 
and was afraid to give offence ; and that, more- 
over, they had been drinking, and he was in fear 
for his own life, should he say a word that would 
be displeasing to them. He did, however, ven- 
ture, and returned and reported the cruel manner 
in which the slaves were chained, and lashed, and 
secured in a blacksmith's vice. In the morning, 
when they ascertained that one of the slaves was 
dead, they were so shocked and indignant that 
they refused to eat in the house, and reproached 
Castleman with his cruelty. He expressed his 
regret that the slave had died, and especially as 
he had ascertained that he was innocent of the ac- 
cusation for which he had suffered. The idea was 
that he had fainted from exhaustion ; and, the 
chain being round his neck, he was strangled. 
The persons I refer to are themselves slave-holders, 
— but their feelings were so harrowed and lace- 
rated that they could not sleep (two of them are 
ladies) ; and for many nights afterwards their rest 
was disturbed, and their dreams made frightful, 
by the appalling recollection. 

" These persons would have been material wit- 
nesses, and would have willingly attended on the 
part of the prosecution. The knowledge they had 
of the case was communicated to the proper au- 
thorities, yet their attendance was not required. 
The only witness was that dependent who con- 
sidered his own life in danger. 

" Yours, &c, J. F." 

The account, as published by the friends of the 



accused parties, shows a case of extreme cruelty. 
The statements made by our correspondent prove 
that the truth has not been fully revealed, and 
that justice has been baffled. The result of the 
trial shows how irresponsible is the power of a 
master over his slave ; and that whatever security 
the latter has is to be sought in the humanity of 
the former, not in the guarantees of law. Against 
the cruelty of an inhuman master he has really no 
safeguard. 

Our conduct in relation to this case, deferring 
all notice of it in our columns till a legal investi- 
gation could be had, shows that we are not dis- 
posed to be captious towards our slave-holding 
countrymen. In no unkind spirit have we ex- 
amined this lamentable case ; but we must expose 
the utter repugnance of the slave system to the 
proper administration of justice. The newspapers 
of Virginia generally publish the account from the 
Spirit of Jefferson, without comment. They are 
evidently not satisfied that justice was done ; 
they doubtless will deny that the accused were 
guilty of homicide, legally ; but they will not 
deny that they were guilty of an atrocity which 
should brand them forever, in a Christian country. 



CHAPTER X. 

PRINCIPLES ESTABLISHED. — STATE V. LE- 
GREE ; A CASE NOT IN THE BOOKS. 

From a review of all the legal cases 
which have hitherto been presented, and of 
the principles established in the judicial 
decisions upon them, the following facts 
must be apparent to the reader : 

First, That masters do, now and then, 
kill slaves by the torture. 

Second, That the fact of so killing a 
slave is not of itself held presumption of 
murder, in slave jurisprudence. 

Third, That the slave in the act of resist- 
ance to his master may always be killed. 

From these things it will be seen to fol- 
low, that, if the facts of the death of Tom 
had been fully proved by two white wit- 
nesses, in open court, Legree could not have 
been held by any consistent interpreter of 
slave-law to be a murderer ; for Tom was 
in the act of resistance to the will of his 
master. His master had laid a command 
on him, in the presence of other slaves. 
Tom had deliberately refused to obey the 
command. The master commenced chas- 
tisement, to reduce him to obedience. And 
it is evident, at the first glance, to every 
one, that, if the law does not sustain him in 
enforcing obedience in such a case, there is 
an end of the whole slave power. No 
Southern court would dare to decide that 
Legree did wrong to continue the punish- 
ment, as long as Tom continued the insub- 
ordination. Legree stood by him every 



104 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 



moment of the time, pressing him to yield, 
and offering to let him go as soon as he did 
yield. Tom's resistance was insurrection. 
It was an example which could not be 
allowed, for a moment, on any Southern 
plantation. By the express words of the 
constitution of Georgia, and by the under- 
standing and usage of all slave-law, the 
power of life and death is always left in the 
hands of the master, in exigences like this. 
This is not a case like that of Souther v. 
The Commonwealth. The victim of Souther 
was not in a state of resistance or insurrec- 
tion. The punishment, in his case, was a 
simple vengeance for a past offence, and not 
an attempt to reduce him to subordination. 
There is no principle of slave jurispru- 
dence by which a man could be pronounced 
a murderer, for acting as Legree did, in his 
circumstances. Everybody must see that 
such an admission would strike at the found- 
ations of the slave system. To be sure, 
Tom was in a state of insurrection for con- 
science' sake. But the law does not, and 
cannot, contemplate that the negro shall 
have a conscience independent of his mas- 
ter's. To allow that the negro may refuse 
to obey his master whenever he thinks that 
obedience would be wrong, would be to pro- 
duce universal anarchy. If Tom had been 
allowed to disobey his master in this case, 
for conscience' sake, the next day Sambo 
would have had a case of conscience, and 
Quimbo the next. Several of them might 
very justly have thought that it was a sin 
to work as they did. The mulatto woman 
Avould have remembered that the command of 
God forbade her to take another husband. 
Mothers might have considered that it was 
more their duty to stay at home and take 
care of their children, when they were 
young and feeble, than to work for Mr. 
Legree in the cotton-field. There would 
be no end to the havoc made upon cotton- 
growing operations, were the negro allowed 
the right of maintaining his own conscience 
on moral subjects. If the slave system is a 
right system, and ought to be maintained, 
Mr. Legree ought not to be blamed for his 
conduct in this case : for he did only what 
was absolutely essential to maintain the 
system ; and Tom died in fanatical and fool- 
hardy resistance to " the powers that be, 
which are ordained of God." He followed 
a sentimental impulse of his desperately 
depraved heart, and neglected those "solid 
teachings of the written word," which, as 
recently elucidated, have proved so refresh- 
ing to eminent political men. 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE TRIUMPH OF JUSTICE OVER LAAV. 

Having been obliged to record so many 
trials in which justice has been turned away 
backward by the hand of law, and ecpuity 
and common humanity have been kept out 
by the bolt and bar of logic, it is a relief to 
the mind to find one recent trial recorded, 
in North Carolina, in which the nobler 
feelings of the human heart have burst over 
formalized limits, and where the prosecution 
appears to have been conducted by men, 
who were not ashamed of possessing in their 
bosoms that very dangerous and most illog- 
ical agitator, a human heart. It is true 
that, in giving this trial, very sorrowful, 
but inevitable, inferences will force them- 
selves upon the mind, as to that state of 
public feeling which allowed such outrages 
to be perpetrated in open daylight, in the 
capital of North Carolina, upon a hapless 
woman. It would seem that the public 
were too truly instructed in the awful doc- 
trine pronounced by Judge Ruffin, that 

" THE POWER OF THE MASTER MUST BE 

absolute," to think of interfering while 
the poor creature was dragged, barefoot and 
bleeding, at a horse's neck, at the rate of 
five miles an hour, through the streets of 
Raleigh. It seems, also, that the most 
horrible brutalities and enormities that 
could be conceived of were witnessed, with- 
out any efficient interference, by a number 
of the citizens, among whom Ave see the 
name of the Hon. W. H. HayAvood, of Ra- 
leigh. It is a comfort to find the attorney- 
general, in this case, speaking as a man 
ought to speak. Certainly there can be 
no occasion to Avish to pervert or overstate 
the dread workings of the slave system, or 
to leave out the feAY comforting and encour- 
aging features, hoAvever small the encour- 
agement of them may be. 

The case is noAV presented, as narrated 
from the published reports, by Dr. Bailey, 
editor of the National Era ; a man whose 
candor and fairness need no indorsing, as 
every line that be Avritcs speaks for itself. 

The reader may at first be surprised to 
find slave testimony in the court, till he 
recollects that it is a slave that is on trial, 
the testimony of slaves being only null 
when it concerns Avhites. 

AN 1NTKRESTINO TRIAL. 

Wo find in one of tlic Raleigh (North Caro- 
lina) papers, of Jnno 5, 1851, a report of an 
interesting trial, at the spring term of the Su- 
perior Court. Mima, a slave, was indicted for 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



105 



the murder of her master, William Smith, of 
Johnston County, on the night of the 29th of 
November, 1850. The evidence for the prose- 
cution was Sidney, a slave-boy, twelve years 
old, who testified that, in the night, he and a 
slave-girl, named Jane, were roused from sleep 
by the call of their master, Smith, who had re- 
turned home. They went out, and found Mima 
tied to his horse's neck, with two ropes, one 
round her neck, the other round her hands. 
Deceased carried her into the house, jerking the 
rope fastened to her neck, and tied her to a post. 
He called for something to eat, threw her a piece 
of bread, and, after he had done, beat her on her 
naked back with a large piece of light-wood, 
giving her many hard blows. In a short time, 
deceased went out of the house, for a special pur- 
pose, witness accompanying him with a torch- 
light, and hearing him say that he intended " to 
use the prisoner up." The light was extin- 
guished, and he reentered the house for the pur- 
pose of lighting it. Jane was there ; but the 
prisoner had been untied, and was not there. 
While lighting his torch, he heard blows outside, 
and heard the deceased cry out, two or three times, 
" 0, Leah ! 0, Leah !" 'Witness and Jane went 
out, saw the deceased bloody and struggling, were 
frightened, ran back, and shut themselves up. 
Leah, it seems, was mother of the prisoner, and 
had run off two years, on account of cruel treat- 
ment by the deceased. 

Smith was speechless and unconscious till he 
died, the following morning, of the wounds in- 
flicted on him. 

It was proved on the trial that Carroll, a white 
man, living about a mile from the house of the 
deceased, and whose wife was said to be the ille- 
gitimate daughter of Smith, had in his possession, 
the morning of the murder, the receipt given the 
deceased by sheriff High, the day before, for jail 
fees, and a note for thirty-five dollars, due deceased 
from one Wiley Price, which Carroll collected a 
short time thereafter ; also the chest-keys of the 
deceased ; and no proof was offered to show how 
Carroll came into possession of these articles. 

The following portion of the testimony discloses 
facts so horrible, and so disgraceful to the people 
who tolerated, in broad daylight, conduct which 
would have shamed the devil, that we copy it 
just as we find it in the Raleigh paper. The 
scene, remember, is the city of Raleigh. 

" The defence was then opened. James Harris, 
C. W. D. Hu tchings, and Hon. W. II . Haywood, 
of Raleigh ; John Cooper, of Wake ; Joseph Hane 
and others, of Johnston, were examined for the 
prisoner. The substance of their testimony was 
as follows : On the forenoon of Friday, 29th of 
November last, deceased took prisoner from Ra- 
leigh jail, tied her round the neck and wrist; 
ropes were then latched to the horse's neck ; he 
cursed the prisoner several times, got on his horse, 
and startedoff; when he got opposite the Tele- 
graph office, on Fayetteville-street, he pulled her 
shoes and stockings off, cursed her again, went 
off m a swift trot, the prisoner running after him, 
doing apparently all she could to keep up ; passed 
round by Peck's store ; prisoner seemed very 
humble and submissive ; took down the street east 
of the capitol, going at the rate of five miles an 
hour; continued this gait until he passed 0. 
Rork's corner, about half or three-quarters of a 
mile from the capitol : that he reached Cooper's 
(one of the witnesses), thirteen miles from Ra- 



leigh, about four o'clock, P. M. : that it was rain- 
ing very hard ; deceased got off his horse, turned 
it loose with prisoner tied to its neck ; witness 
went to take deceased's horse to stable ; heard 
great lamentations at the house ; hurried back : 
saw his little daughter running through the rain 
from the house, much frightened ; got there ; 
deceased was gouging prisoner in the eyes, and 
she making outcries ; made him stop ; became 
vexed, and insisted upon leaving; did leave in a 
short time, in the rain, sun about an hour high ; 
when he left, prisoner was tied as she was before ; 
her arms and fingers were very much swollen ; the 
rope around her wrist was small, and had sunk 
deep into the flesh, almost covered with it; that 
around the neck was large, and tied in a slip- 
knot ; deceased would jerk it every now and then ; 
when jerked, it would choke prisoner ; she was 
barefoot and bleeding ; deceased was met some 
time after dark, in about six miles of home, being 
twenty-four or twenty-five from Raleigh." 

Why did they not strike the monster to the 
earth, and punish him for his infernal brutality? 

The attorney-general conducted the prosecution 
with evident loathing. The defence argued, first, 
that the evidence was insufficient to fasten the 
crime upon the prisoner ; secondly, that, should 
the jury be satisfied beyond a rational doubt that 
the prisoner committed the act charged, it would 
yet be only manslaughter. 

" A single blow between equals would mitigate 
a killing instanter from murder to manslaughter. 
It could not, in law, be anything more, if done 
under the furor brcvis of passion. But the rule 
was different as between master and slave. It 
was necessary that this should be, to preserve the 
subordination of the slave. The prisoner's coun- 
sel then examined the authorities at length, and 
contended that the prisoner's case came within 
the rule laid down in The State v. Will (1 Dev. 
and Bat. 121). The rule Ihere given by Judge 
Gaston is this : ' If a slave, in defence of his 
life, and under circumstances strongly calculated 
to excite his passions of terror and resentment^ 
kill his overseer or master, the homicide is, by 
such circumstances, mitigated to manslaughter.' 
The cruelties of the deceased to the prisoner were 
grievous and long-continued. They would have 
shocked a barbarian. The savage loves and thirsts 
for blood ; but the acts of civilized life have not 
afforded him such refinement of torture as was 
here exhibited." 

The attorney-general, after discussing the law, 
appealed to the jury " not to suffer the prejudice 
which the counsel for the defence had attempted 
to create against the deceased {whose conduct, he 
admitted, was disgraceful to human nature) to in- 
fluence their judgments in deciding whether the 
act of the prisoner was criminal or not, and what 
decree of criminality attached to it. He desired 
the prisoner to have a fair and impartial trial. He 
wished her to receive the benefit of every rational 
doubt. It was her right, however humble her condi- 
tion ; he hoped he had not that heart, as he certainly 
had not the right by virtue of his office, to ask in her 
case for anything more than he would ask from tlie 
highest and proudest of the land on trial, that the 
jury should decide according to the evidence, and 
vindicate the violated law."_ 

These were honorable sentiments. 

After an able charge by Judge Ellis, the jury 
retired, and, after having remained out several 
hours, returned with a verdict of Not Guilty. Of 



10G 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



course, we see not how they could hesitate to come 
to this verdict at once. 

The correspondent who furnishes the Register 
witli a report of the case says : 

" It excited an intense interest in the commu- 
nity in which it occurred, and, although it devel- 
ops a series of cruelties shocking to human 
nature, the result of the trial, nevertheless, vindi- 
cates the benignity and justice of our laws tow- 
ards that class of our population whose condi- 
tion Northern fanaticism has so carefully and 
grossly misrepresented, for their own purposes of 
selfishness, agitation, and crime." 

"We have no disposition to misrepresent the 
condition of the slaves, or to disparage the laws 
of North Carolina ; but we ask, with a sincere 
desire to know the truth, Do the laws of North 
Carolina allow a master to practise such horrible 
cruelties upon his slaves as Smith was guilty of, 
and would the public sentiment of the city of Ra- 
leigh permit a repetition of such enormities as 
were perpetrated in its streets, in the light of 
day, by that miscreant ? 

In conclusion, as the accounts of these 
various trials contain so many shocking in- 
cidents and particulars, the author desires 
to enter a caution against certain mistaken 
uses which may be made of them, by well- 
intending persons. The crimes themselves, 
which form the foundation of the trials, are 
not to be considered and spoken of as speci- 
mens of the common working of the slave 
system. They are, it is true, the logical 
and legitimate fruits of a system which 
makes every individual owner an irrespons- 
ible despot. But the actual number of 
them, compared with the whole number of 
masters, we take pleasure in saying, is 
small. It is an injury to the cause of 
freedom to ground the argument against 
slavery upon the frequency , with which 
such scenes as these occur. It misleads the 
popular mind as to the real issue of the 
subject. To hear many men talk, one 
would think that they supposed that unless 
negroes actually were whipped or burned 
alive at the rate of two or three dozen a 
week, there was no harm in slavery. They 
seem to see nothing in the system but its 
gross bodily abuses. If these are absent. 
they think there is no harm in it. They do 
not consider that the twelve hours' torture 
of some poor victim, bleeding away his 
life, ilmp by drop, under the hands of a 
Souther, is only a symbol of that more 
atrocious process by which the divine, im- 
mortal soul is mangled, burned, lacerated, 
thrown down, stamped upon, and suffocated, 
by the fiend-like force of the tyrant Slav- 
ery. And as, when the torturing work was 
done, and the poor soul flew up to the judg- 
ment-seat, to stand there in awful witness, 
there was not a vestige of humanity left in 



that dishonored body, nor anything by 
which it could be said, " See, this Avas a 
man!" — so, when Slavery has finished 
her legitimate work upon the soul, and 
trodden out every spark of manliness, and 
honor, and self-respect, and natural affec- 
tion, and conscience, and religious sentiment, 
then there is nothing left in the soul, 
by which to say, " This was a nan ! " 
and it becomes necessary for judges to con- 
struct grave legal arguments to prove that 
the slave is a human being. 

Such extreme cases of bodily abuse from 
the despotic power of slavery are compara- 
tively rare. Perhaps they may be paral- 
leled by cases brought to light in the crim- 
inal jurisprudence of other countries. They 
might, perhaps, have happened anywhere ; 
at any rate, we will concede that they 
might. But where under the sun did such 
trials, of such cases, ever take place, 
in any nation professing to be free. and 
Christian '] The reader of English history 
will perhaps recur to the trials under Judge 
Jeffries, as a parallel. A moment's reflec- 
tion will convince him that there is no 
parallel between the cases. The decisions 
of Jeffries were the decisions of a monster, 
who violently wrested law from its legiti- 
mate course, to gratify his own fiendish 
nature. The decisions of American slave- 
law have been, for the most part, the deci- 
sions of honorable and humane men, who 
have wrested from their natural course the 
most humane feelings, to fulfil the mandates 
of a cruel law. 

In the case of Jeffries, the sacred forms 
of the administration of justice were violat- 
ed. In the case of the American decisions, 
every form has been maintained. Revolt- 
ing to humanity as these decisions appear, 
they are strictly logical and legal. 

Therefore, again, Ave say, Where, eA^er, in 
any nation professing to be civilized and 
Christian, did such trials, of such cases, 
take place ? When were ever such legal 
arguments made 1 When, ever, such legal 
principles judicially affirmed? Was ever 
such a trial held in England as that in 
Virginia, of Souther v. The Common- 
WBALTB .' Was it ever necessary in Eng- 
land for a judge to declare on the bench, 
contrary to the opinion of a lower court, 
that the death of an apprentice, by twelve 
hours' torture from his master, did amount 
to murder in the first degree ? Was such a 
decision, if given, accompanied by the af- 
firmation of the principle, that any amount 
of torture inflicted by the master, short of 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



107 



the point of death, was not indictable 1 
Not being read in English law, the writer 
cannot say ; but there is strong impression 
from within that such a decision as this 
would have shaken the whole island of 
Great Britain ; and that such a case as 
Souther v. The Commonwealth would 
never have been forgotten under the 
sun. Yet it is probable that very few per- 
sons in the United States ever heard of the 
case, or ever would have heard of it, had it 
not been quoted by the New York Courier 
and Enquirer as an overwhelming ex- 
ample of legal humanity. 

The horror of the whole matter is, that 
more than one such case should ever need 
to happen in a country, in order to make 
the whole community feel, as one man, that 
such power ought not to be left in the hands 
of a master. How many such cases do 
people wish to have happen 1 — how many 
must happen, before they will learn that 
utter despotic power is not to be trusted in 
any hands'? If one white man's son or 
brother had been treated in this way, under 
the law of apprenticeship, the whole coun- 
try would have trembled, from Louisiana to 
Maine, till that law had been altered. They 
forget that the black man has also a father. 
It is "He that sitteth upon the circle of 
the heavens, who bringeth the princes to 
nothing, and maketh the judges of the earth 
as vanity." He hath said that " When he 
maketh inquisition for blood, he forgetteth 
not the cry of the humble." That blood 
which has fallen so despised to the earth, — 
that blood which lawyers have quibbled over, 
in the quiet of legal nonchalance, discussing 
in great ease whether it fell by murder in the 
first or second degree, — HE will one day 
reckon for as the blood of his own child. 
He '• is not slack concerning his promises, 
as some men count slackness, but is long- 
suffering to usward ;" but the day of ven- 
geance is surely coming, and the year of 
his redeemed is in his heart. 

Another court will sit upon these trials, 
when the Son of Man shall come in his glory. 
It will be not alone Souther, and such as he, 
that will be arraigned there ; but all those in 
this nation, north and south, who have abetted 
the system, and made the laws which made 
Souther what he was. In that court negro 
testimony will be received, if never before ; 
and the judges and the counsellors, and the 
chief men, and the mighty men, marshalled 
to that awful bar, will say to the mountains 
and the rocks. " Fall on us and hide us 
from the face of Him that sitteth on 



the throne, and from the wrath of the 
Lamb." 

The wrath of the Lamb ! Think of it ! 
Think that Jesus Christ has been present, 
a witness, — a silent witness through every 
such scene of torture and anguish, — a silent 
witness in every such court, calmly hearing 
the evidence given in, the lawyers pleading, 
the bills filed, and cases appealed! And 
think what a heart Jesus Christ has, and 
with what age-long patience he has suffered ! 
What awful depths are there in that word, 
long-suffering ! and what must be that 
wrath, when, after ages of endurance, this 
dread accumulation of wrong and anguish 
comes up at last to judgment! 



CHAPTER XL 



A COMPARISON OF THE ROMAN LAW OF 
SLAVERY WITH THE AMERICAN. 

The writer has expressed the opinion 
that the American law of slavery, taken 
throughout, is a more severe one than that 
of any other civilized nation, ancient or 
modern, if we except, perhaps, that of 
the Spartans. She has not at hand the 
means of comparing French and Spanish 
slave-codes ; but, as it is a common remark 
that Roman slavery was much more severe 
than any that has ever existed in America, 
it will be well to compare the Roman with 
the American law. We therefore present 
a description of the Roman slave-law. as 
quoted by William Jay. Esq., from Blair's 
1 Inquiry into the State of Slavery among 
the Romans,'" giving such references to 
American authorities as will enable the 
reader to make his own comparison, and to 
draw his own inferences. 

I. The slave had no protection against the avarice, 
rage, or lust of the master, whose authority was 
founded in absolute property; and the bondman 
icas viewed less as a human being subject to arbitrary 
dominion, than as an inferior animal, dependent 
icholly on the will of his owner. 

See law of South Carolina, in Stroud's 
u Sketch of the Lairs of Slavery ," p. 23. 

Slaves shall be deemed, sold, taken, reputed 
and adjudged in law to be chattels per- 2 Brev Di;:< 
sonal in the hands of their owners and 229. Prince's 
possessors, and their executors, admin- j^b's Dig. 
istrators and assigns, to all intents, 971. 
constructions, and purposes whatever. 

A slave is one who is in the Lou . civil Code, 
power of a master to whom he art. 35. Stroud's 

belongs. Sketch, p. 22. 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



108 

Such obedience is the consequence only 

Judge Ruf- of uncontrolled authority over the body. 
fin's Decision rpL j g no thing; else -which can op- 

in the case of J -" v - 1 ^ o r 

The State v. erate to produce the efiect. the power 
Mann. Whee- f the master must be absolute, to ren- 
S!avery a, 246. f der tne submission of the slave perfect. 

II. At first, the master possessed the uncontrolled 
power of life and death. 

judge Clarke, in case of T .. A * » ™?J early period in 

State of Miss. v. Jones. \ irgmia, the power ot lite over 

Wheeler, 2o2. slaves was given by statute. 

III. He might Mil, mutilate or torture his slaves, 
for any or no offence ; he might force them to become 
gladiators or prostitutes. 

The privilege of killing is now some- 
what abridged; as to mutilation and tor- 
ture, see the case of Souther v. The Com- 
monwealth, 7 Grattan, 673, quoted in 
Chapter III, above. Also State v. Mann, 
in the same chapter, from Wheeler, p. 244. 

IV. The temporary unions of mate with female 
slaves were formed and dissolved at his command; 
families and friends were separated when he pleased. 

See the decision of Judge Mathews in 
the case of Girod v. Lewis, Wheeler, 199 : 

It is clear, that slaves have no legal capacity to 
assent to any contract. With the consent of their 
master, they may marry, and their moral power 
to agree to such a contract or connection as that 
of marriage cannot be doubted ; but whilst in a 
state of slavery it cannot produce any civil effect, 
because slaves are deprived of all civil rights. 

See also the chapter below on "the sep- 
aration of families," and the files of any 
southern newspaper, passim. 

V. The laivs recognized no obligation upon the 
owners of slaves, to furnish them with food and 
clothing, or to take care of them in sickness. 

The extent to which this deficiency in 
the Roman law has been supplied in the 
American, by " protective acts," has been< 
exhibited above. 

VI. Staves could have no property but by the suf- 
ferance of their master, for ivhom they acquired 
etx rything, ami with whom they could form no en- 
gagements which could be binding on him. 

The loll .wing chapter will show how far 
American legislation is in advance of that 
of the Romans, in that it makes it a penal 
offence on the pari of the master to permit 
his slave to hold property, and a crime 
on the part of the slave to be so permitted. 
For the present purpose, we give an extract 
from the Civil code of Louisiana, as quoted 
by Judge Stroud : 



* See also the case of State v. Abram, 10 Ala. 928. 1U. 
s. /' j. p. W9. "The master or overseer, and nnt the 
slave, is the proper judge whether the slave is too sick to 
be able to labor. The latter cannot, therefore, resist the 
order of the former to go to work." 



A slave is one who is in the power of a mast-ei 
to whom he belongs. The master may sell him, 
dispose of his person, his industry, Civi , Co( j e 
and his labor ; he can do nothing, Article 35.' 
possess nothing, nor acquire anything Struud, p. 2a. 
but what must belong to his master. 

According to Judge Ruffin, a slave is 
"one doomed in his own person, and his 
posterity, to live without knowl- whuer's Law 
edge, and without the capacity to at^stLte I'. 
make anything his own, and to Mann - 
toil that another may reap the fruits." 

With reference to the binding power of 
engagements between master and slave, the 
following decisions from the United States 
Digest are in point (7, p. 449) : 

All the acquisitions of the slave in possession 
are the property of his master, not- 
withstanding the promise of his mas- S?.'^ ^^ 
ter that the slave shall have certain of ' 424. 
them. 

A slave paid money which he had earned over 
and above his wages, for the purchase "of his 
children into the hands of B, and B purchased 
such children with the money. Held that 
the master of such slave was entitled, to ' ' 
recover the money of B. 

VII. The master might transfer his rights by 
either sale or gift, or might bequeath them by will. 

Slaves shall be deemed, sold, taken, reputed, 
and adjudged in law, to be chattels Law of S. Car- 
personal in the hands of their owners olina. Cobb's 

and possessors, and their executors, D 'S est ' 9a - 
administrators, and assigns, to all intents, con- 
structions, and purposes whatsoever. 

VIII. A master selling, giving, or bequeathing 
a slave, sometimes made it a provision that he should 
never be carried abroad, or that he should be manu- 
mitted on a fixed day; or that, on the other hand, 
he should never be emancipated, or that he should be 
kept in chains for life. 

We hardly think that a provision that a 

slave should never be emancipated, or that 

he should be kept in chains for 

™.™ r.'s!"' life, would be sustained. A pro- 

Rcp. 1. 5 r. s. vision that the slave should not 

; . f»2, § 5. k e gaj-pjed ou t f the state, or 
sold, and that on the happening of either 
event he should be free, has been sustained. 

The remainder of Blair's account of Ro- 
man slavery is devoted rather to the practices 
of masters than the state of the law itself. 
Surely, the writer is not called upon to 
exhibit in the society of enlightened, repub- 
lican and Christian America, in the nine- 
teenth century, a parallel to the atrocities 
committed in pagan Home, under the scep- 
tre of the persecuting Caesars, when the 
amphitheatre was the favorite resort of the 
most refined of her citizens, as well as the 
great " school of morals" for the multitude. 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



109 



A few references only -will show, as far as 
we desire to show, how much safer it is now 
to trust man with absolute power over his 
fellow, than it was then. 

IX. While slaves turned the handmill they were 
generally chained, and had a broad wooden collar, to 
■prevent them from eating the grain. The furca, 
which in later language means a gibbet, was, in older 
dialect, used to denote a wooden fork or collar, which 
was made to bear vpon their shoulders, or around 
their necks, as a mark of disgrace, as much as an 
uneasy burden. 

The reader has already seen, in Chapter 
V., that this instrument of degradation has 
been in use, in our own day, in certain of 
the slave states, under the express sanction 
and protection of statute laws ; although the 
material is different, and the construction 
doubtless improved by modern ingenuity. 

X. Fetters and chains were much used for pun- 
ishment or restraint, and loere, in some instances, 
worn by slaves during life, through the sole author- 
ity of the master. Porters at the gates of the rich 
were generally chained. Field laborers worked for 
the most part in irons posterior to the first ages of 
the republic. 

The Legislature of South Carolina spec- 
ially sanctions the same practices, by except- 
ing them in the " protective enactment" 
which inflicts the penalty of one hundred 
pounds " in case any person shall wilfully 
cut out the tongue," &c, of a slave, " or 
shall inflict any other cruel punishment, 
other than by whipping or beating with 
a horse-whip, cowskin, switch, or small stick, 
or by putting irons on, or confining or 
imprisoning such slave." 

XI. Some persons n*adc it their business to catch 
runaway slaves. 

That such a profession, constituted by the 
highest legislative authority in the nation, 
and rendered respectable by the commenda- 
tion expressed or implied of statesmen and 
divines, and of newspapers political and re- 
ligious, exists in our midst, especially in 
. the free states, is a fact which is, day by 
day, making itself too apparent to need tes- 
timony. The matter seems, however, to be 
managed in a more perfectly open and busi- 
ness-like manner in the State of Alabama 
than elsewhere. Mr. Jay cites the follow- 
ing advertisement from the Sumpter County 
(Ala.) Whig: 

NEGRO DOGS. 

The undersigned having bought the entire pack 
of Negro Dogs (of the Hay and Allen stock) , he 
now proposes to catch runaway negroes. His 
charges will be Three Dollars per day for hunting, 
and Fifteen Dollars for catching a runaway. He 



resides three and one half miles north of Living- 
ston, near the lower Jones' Bluff road. 

William Gamdel. 
Nov. 6, 1845. — 6m. 

The following is copied, verbatim et lit- 
eratim, and with the pictorial embellish- 
ments, from The Dadeville (Ala.) Ban- 
ner, of November 10th, 1852. The 
Dadeville Banner is " devoted to politics, 
literature, education, agriculture, cj'c. ,: 

a NOTICE. 

jffife The undersigned having an excel- sj^-^J 
Jzk-** lent pack of Hounds, for trailing and== — ^ 



catching runaway slaves, informs the public that 
his prices in future will be as follows for such 
services : 
For each day employed in hunting or 

trailing, $2.50 

For catching each slave, - - - 10.00 
For going over ten miles and catching 

slaves, 20.00 

If sent for, the above prices will be exacted in 
cash. The subscriber resides one mile and a 
half south of Dadeville, Ala. 

B. Black. 

Dadeville, Sept. 1, 1852. ltf 

XII. The runaway, when taken, was severely 
punished by authority of the master, or by the judge, 
at his desire; sometimes with crucifixion, amputa- 
tion of afoot, or by being sent to fight as a gladia- 
tor with ivild beasts ; but most frequently by being 
branded on the brow ivith letters indicative of his 
crime. 

That severe punishment would be the lot 
of the recaptured runaway, every one would 
suppose, from the " absolute power " of the 
master to inflict it. That it is inflicted in 
many cases, it is equally easy and needless 
to prove. The peculiar forms of punish- 
ment mentioned above are now very . much 
out of vogue, but the following advertise- 
ment by Mr. Micajah Ricks, in the Raleigh 
(N. C.) Standard of July 18th, 1838, 
shows that something of classic taste in tor- 
ture still lingers in our degenerate days. 

Ran away, a negro woman and two children ; 
a few days before she went off, I burnt her with 
a hot iron, on the left side of her face. I tried to 
make the letter M. 

It is charming to notice the naif be- 
trayal of literary pride on the part of Mr. 
Ricks. He did not wish that letter M to be 
taken as a specimen of what he could do in 
the way of writing. The creature would 
not hold still, and he fears the M may be 
ilegible. 

The above is only one of a long list of 
advertisements of maimed, cropped and 
branded negroes, in the book of Mr. Weld. 
entitled American Slavery as It Is, p. 77. 



110 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



XIII. Crue. masters sometimes hired torturers 
by profession, or had such persons in their estab- 
lishments, to assist them in punishing their slaves. 
The noses and ears and teeth of slaves were often 
in danger from an enraged owner; and sometimes 
the ryes of a great offender were put out. Crucifix- 
ton was very frequently made the fate of a wretched 
slave for a trifling misconduct, or from mere 
caprice. 

For justification of suet practices as 
these, we refer again to that horrible list of 
maimed and mutilated men, advertised by 
slaveholders themselves, in Weld's Ameri- 
can Slavery as It Is, p. 77. We recall the 
reader's attention to the evidence of the 
monster Kephart, given in Part I. As to 
crucifixion, we presume that there are 
wretches whose religious scruples would de- 
ter them from this particular form of torture, 
who would not hesitate to inflict equal cruel- 
ties by other means ; as the Greek pirate, 
during a massacre in the season of Lent, was 
conscience-stricken at having tasted a drop of 
blood. We presume ? — Let any one but read 
again, if he can, the sickening details of that 
twelve hours' torture of Souther's slave, 
and say how much more merciful is Ameri- 
can slavery than Roman. 

The last item in Blair's description of 
Roman slavery is the following : 

By a decree passed by the Senate, if a master 
was murdered when his slaves might possibly have 
aided him, all his household within reach were held 
as implicated, and deserving of death ; and Tacitus 
relates an instance in which a family of four hundred 
were all executed. 

To this alone, of all the atrocities of the 
slavery of old heathen Rome, do we fail to 
find a parallel in the slavery of the United 
States of America. 

There are other respects, in which Amer- 
ican legislation has reached a refinement in 
tyranny of which the despots of those early 
days never conceived. The following is the 
language of Gibbon : 

Hope, the best comfort of our imperfect con- 
dition, was not denied to the Roman slave ; and if 
lie had any opportunity of rendering himself either 
useful or agreeable, he might very naturally expect 
that the diligence and fidelity of a few years would 
be rewarded with the inestimable gift of freedom. 
* * * Without destroying the distinction of 
ranks, a distant prospect of freedom and honors 
was presented even to those whom pride and pre- 
judice almost disdained to number among the 
human species.* 

The youths of promising genius were in- 
structed in the arts and sciences, and their price 
was ascertained by the degree of their skill and 
talents. Almost every profession, either liberal 
or mechanical, might be found in the household of 
an opulent senator, f 

* Gibbon's " Decline and Fall," Chap. u. t Ibid. 



The following chapter will show how 
"the best comfort" which Gibbon knew for 
human adversity is taken away from the 
American slave ; how he is denied the com- 
monest privileges of education and mental 
improvement, and how the whole tendency 
of the unhappy system, under which he is 
in bondage, is to take from him the conso- 
lations of religion itself, and to degrade him 
from our common humanity, and common 
brotherhood with the Son of God. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE MEN BETTER THAN THEIR LAWS. 

Judgment is turned away backward, 
And Justice standeth afar off; 
For Truth is fallen in the street, 
And Equity cannot enter. 
Yea, Truth faileth ; 

and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a 
fret. Isaiah 59: 14, 15. 

There is one very remarkable class of 
laws yet to be considered. 

So full of cruelty and of unmerciful se- 
verity is the slave-code, — such an atrocity 
is the institution of which it is the legal 
definition, — that there are multitudes of 
individuals too generous and too just to be 
willing to go to the full extent of its restric- 
tions and deprivations. 

A generous man, instead of regarding 
the poor slave as a piece of property, dead, 
and void of rights, is tempted to regard him 
rather as a helpless younger brother, or as 
a defenceless child, and to extend to him, 
by his own good right arm, that protection 
and those rights which the law denies him. 
A religious man, who, by the theory of his 
belief, regards all men as brothers, and con- 
siders his Christian slave, with himself, as a 
member of Jesus Christ, — as of one body, 
one spirit, and called in one hope of his 
calling,— cannot willingly see him " doomed 
to live without knowledge," without the 
power of reading the written Word, and to 
raise up his children after him in the same 
darkness. 

Hence, if left to itself, individual hu- 
manity would, in many cases, practically 
abrogate the slave-code. Individual human- 
ity would teach the slave to read and write, 
— would build school-houses for his chil- 
dren, and would, in very, very many cases, 
enfranchise him. 

• The result of all this has been foreseen. 
It has been foreseen that the result uf edu- 



KEY TO UNCLE TOMS CABIN. 



Ill 



cation would be general intelligence ; that 
the result of intelligence would be a knowl- 
edge of personal rights ; and that an inquiry 
into the doctrine of personal rights would 
be fatal to the system. It has been foreseen, 
also, that the example of disinterestedness 
and generosity, in emancipation, might carry 
with it a generous contagion, until it should 
become universal ; that the example of edu- 
cated and emancipated slaves would prove a 
dangerous excitement to those still in bondage. 

For this reason, the American* slave-code, 
which, as we have already seen, embraces, 
substantially, all the barbarities of that of 
ancient Rome, has had added to it a set of 
laws more cruel than any which ancient and 
heathen Rome ever knew, — laws designed 
to shut against the slave his last refuge, — 
the humanity of his master. The master, 
in ancient Rome, might give his slave what- 
ever advantages of education he chose, or at 
any time emancipate him, and the state did 
not interfere to prevent* 

But in America the laws, throughout all 
the slave states, most rigorously forbid, in 
the first place, the education of the slave. 
We do not profess to give all these laws, but 
a few striking specimens may be presented. 
Our authority is Judge Stroud's " Sketch 
of the Laws of Slavery." 

The legislature of South Carolina, in 
1740, enounced the following preamble : — 
Stroud's sketch, " Whereas, the having of slaves 
P . ss. taught to write, or suffering 
them to be employed in writing, may be at- 
tended with great inconveniences ; " and 
enacted that the crime of teaching a slave to 
write, or of employing a slave as a scribe, 
should be punished by a fine of one hundred 
pounds, current money. If the reader will 
turn now to the infamous "protective" 
statute, enacted by the same legislature, in 
the same year, he will find that the same 
penalty has been appointed for the cutting 
out of the tongue, putting out of the eye, 
cruel scalding, &c, of any slave, as for the 
offence of teaching him to write ! That is 
to say, that to teach him to write, and to put 
out his eyes, are. to be regarded as equally 
reprehensible. 

That there might be no doubt of the 
"great and fundamental policy" of the 
Btate, and that there might be full security 
against the "great inconveniences 11 of 
" having of slaves taught to write," it was 

* In and after the reign of Augustus, certain restrictive 
regulations were passed, designed to prevent an increase 
of unworthy citizens by emancipation. They had, how- 
ever, nothing like the stringent force of American laws. 



enacted, in 1800, " That assemblies of slaves, 
free negroes, &c, * * * * for the 
purpose of mental instruction, in a con- 
fined or secret place, &c. &c, is [are] de- 
clared to be an unlawful meeting ; " and the 
officers are required to enter such confined 
places, and disperse the "unlawful assem- 
blage," inflicting, at their discretion, " such 
corporal punishment, not exceeding twenty 
lashes, upon such slaves, free stroud's Sketch, 
negroes, &c, as they may judge &&£K 
necessary for deterring them pp- 25*^6. 
from the like unlaioful assemblage in 
future." 

The statute-book of Virginia is adorned 
with a law similar to the one last str 2 U(, ' ao pp - 
quoted. 

The offence of teaching a slave to write 
was early punished, in Georgia, as in South 
Carolina, by a pecuniary fine. But the 
city of Savannah seems to have found this 
penalty insufficient to protect it from ' ' great 
inconveniences 1 " 1 and we learn, by a quot- 
ation in the work of Judge Stroud from 
a number of " The Portfolio," that " the 
city has passed an ordinance, by which any 
person that teaches any person of color. 
slave or free, to read or write, or causes 
such person to be so taught, is stroud's sketch, 
subjected to a fine of thirty dol- pp- 89 > &>. 
lars for each offence ; and every person of 
color who shall keep a school, to teach 
reading or writing, is subject to a fine of 
thirty dollars, or to be imprisoned ten days, 
and whipped thirty-nine lashes." 

Secondly. In regard to religious privi- 
leges : 

The State of Georgia has enacted a law, 
" To protect religious societies in the exer- 
cise of their religious duties." This law, 
after appointing rigorous penalties for the 
offence of interrupting or disturbing a con- 
gregation of white persons, concludes in the 
following words : 

No congregation, or company of negroes, 
shall, under pretence of divine worship, Stroud, p. 92. 
assemble themselves, contrary to the Prince's Digest, 
act regulating patrols. p ' 

" The act regulating patrols," as quoted 
by the editor of Prince's Digest, empowers 
every justice of the peace to disperse any 
assembly or meeting of slaves ud 
which may disturb the peace, irWs Digest, 
&c, of his majesty's subjects, p " 
and permits that every slave found at such 
a meeting shall " immediately be corrected, 
without trial, by receiving on the bare 
back twenty-five stripes with a whip, 
switch, or cowskin" 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



112 

The history of legislation in South Caro- 
lina is significant. An act was passed in 
1800, containing the following section : 

It shall not be lawful for any number of 
slaves, free negroes, mulattoes or mestizoes, even 
in company with white persons, to meet together 
Stroud p 93. and assemble for the purpose of men- 
2 Brevard's tal instruction or religious worship, 
Dij. 254,255. e ;ther before the rising of the sun, or 
after the going clown of the same. And all magis- 
trates, sheriffs, militia officers, &c. &c, are hereby 
vested with power, &c, for dispersing such 
assemblies, &c. 

The law just quoted seems somehow to 
have had a prejudicial effect upon the reli- 
gious interests of the " slaves, free negrOes," 
&c, specified in it; for, three years after- 
wards, on the petition of certain religious 
societies, a " protective act" was passed, 
which should secure them this great re- 
ligions privilege ; to wit, that it should be 
unlawful, before nine o'clock, "to break 
into a place of meeting, wherein shall be 
assembled the members of any religious so- 
ciety of this state, provided a majority of 
them shall be white persons, or otherwise 
to disturb their devotion, wiless such per- 
son shall have first obtained * * * * 
a warrant, &c." 

Thirdly. It appears that many masters, 
who are disposed to treat their slaves gen- 
erously, have allowed them to accumulate 
property, to raise domestic animals for their 
own use, and, in the case of intelligent 
servants, to go at large, to hire their own 
time, and to trade upon their own account. 
Upon all these practices the law comes 
down, with unmerciful severity. A penalty 
is inflicted on the owner, but, with a rigor 
quite accordant with the tenor of slave-law 
the offence is considered, in law, as that of 
the slave, rather than that of the master ; 
so that, if the master is generous enough not 
to regard the penalty which is imposed upon 
himself, he may be restrained by the fear 
of bringing a greater evil upon his depend- 
ent. These laws are, in some cases, so con- 
structed as to make it for the interest of the 
lowest and most brutal part of society that 
they be enforced, by offering half the profits 
to the informer. We give the following, as 
specimens of slave legislation on this sub- 
ject : 

The law of South Carolina : 

It shall not be lawful for any slave to buy, 
sell, trade, &c, for any goods, &c, without a 
license from the owner, &c; nor shall any slave be 
permitted to keep any boat, periauger,* or canoe, 



Stroud, p. 47 



* i. t. Pcriagua. 



or raise and breed, for the benefit of such slave, 
any horses, mares, cattle, sheep, or hogs, under 
pain of forfeiting all the goods, &c, and all the 
boats, periaugers, or canoes, horses, mares, cattle, 
sheep or hogs. And it shall be law- _, , .. 

c , f. ° , . Stroud, pp. 46, 

Jul tor any person whatsoever to 47. j am es' T»i 
seize and take away from any slave g« 3 t, sss. 3S6. 
all such goods, &c, boats, &c. &c, Actofmo - 
and to deliver the same into the hands of any jus- 
tice of the peace, nearest to the place where the 
seizure shall be made ; and such justice shall take 
the oath of the person making such seizure, con- 
cerning the manner thereof ; and if the said jus- 
tice shall be satisfied that such seizure has been 
made according to law, he shall pronounce and 
declare the goods so seized to be forfeited, and 
order the same to be sold at public outcry, one 
half of the moneys arising from such sale to go to 
the state, and the other half to him or them that 
sue for the same. 

The laws in many other states are similar 
to the above ; but the State of Georgia has 
an additional provision, against per- 2 Cobb's 
mitting the slave to hire himself to Dig - 2S4 - 
another for his own benefit ; a penalty of 
thirty dollars is imposed for every weekly 
offence, on the part of the master, unless 
the labor be done on his own premises. 
Savannah, Augusta, and Sunbury, are places 
excepted. 

In Virginia, "if the master shall permit 
his slave to hire himself out," the 
slave is to be apprehended, &c. 
and the master to be fined. 

In an early act of the legislature of the 
orthodox and Presbyterian State of North 
Carolina, it is gratifying to see how the judi- 
cious course of public policy is made to 
subserve the interests of Christian charity, 
— how, in a single ingenious sentence, pro- 
vision is made for punishing the offender 
against society, rewarding the patriotic in- 
former, and feeding the poor and destitute : 

All horses, cattle, hogs or sheep, that, one 
month after the passing of this act, shall 
belong to any slave, or be of any slave's g keto ij 4 \. 
mark, in this state, shall be seized and 
sold by the county wardens, and by them applied, 
the one-half to the support of the poor of the 
county, and the other half to the informer. 

In Mississippi a fine of fifty dollars is 
imposed upon the master who permits his 
slave to cultivate cotton for his own 

... 1 • l x Stroud, p. -18. 

use ; or who licenses his slave to 
go at large and trade as a freeman ; or who 
is convicted of permitting his slave to keep 
" stock of any description." 

To show how the above law has been in- 
terpreted by the highest judicial tribunal of 
the sovereign State of Mississippi, we repeat 
here a portion of a decision of Chief Justice 
Sharkey, which we have elsewhere given 
more in full. 



KEY TO UNCLE TOMS CABIN. 



113 



Independent of the principles laid down in ad- 
judicated cases, our statute-law prohibits slaves 
from owning certain kinds of property ; and it 
may be inferred that the legislature supposed 
they were extending the act as far as it could be 
necessary to exclude them from owning any prop- 
erty, as the prohibition includes that kind of 
property which they would most likely be per- 
mitted to own without interruption, to wit : hogs, 
horses, cattle, &c. They cannot be prohibited 
from holding such property in consequence of its 
being of a dangerous or offensive character, but be- 
cause it ivas deemed impolitic for them to hold prop- 
erty of any description. 

It was asserted, at the beginning of this 
head, that the permission of the master to a 
slave to hire his own time is, by law, con- 
sidered the offence of the slave ; the slave 
being subject to prosecution therefor, not 
the master. This is evident from the tenor 
of some of the laws quoted and alluded to 
above. It will be still further illustrated by 
the following decisions of the courts of North 
Carolina. They are copied from the Sup- 
plement to the U. S. Digest, vol. n. p. 798 : 

139. An indictment charging that a certain 
_ „ „ negro did hire her own time, 

5 ^eil, S 88 " contrary to the form of the stat- 

ute, &c, is defective and must 

be quashed, because it was omitted to be charged 

that she teas permitted by her master to- go at large, 

which is one essential part of the offence. 

140. Under the first clause of the thirty-first 
section of the 111th chapterof the Revised Statutes, 
prohibiting masters from hiring to slaves their 
own time, the master is not indictable; he is only 
subject to a penalty of forty dollars. Nor is the 
master indictable under the second clause of that 
section ; the process being against the slave, not 
against the master. — lb. 

142. To constitute the offence under section 32 
(Rev. Stat. c. cxi. § 32) it is not necessary that 
the slave should have hired his time ; it is" suffi- 
cient if the master permits him to go at large as 
a freeman. 

This is maintaining the ground that 
u the master can do no wrong" with great 
consistency and thoroughness. But it is in 
perfect keeping, both in form and spirit. 
with the whole course of slave-law, which 
always upholds the supremacy of the master, 
and always depresses the slave. 

Fourthly. Stringent laws against eman- 
cipation exist in nearly all the slave states. 

In four of the states, — South Carolina, 
stroud, 147. Prince's Georgia, Alabama, and Mis- 
Si.' 4 To«' D | sissippi,— emancipation can- 
ts i2. Miss. Kev code, not be effected, except by a 
special act of the legislature 
of the state. 

In Georgia, the offence of setting free 
"any slave, or slaves, in any other manner 
and form than the one prescribed," was pun- 
ishable, according to the law of 1801, by 
8 



the forfeiture of two hundred dollars, to be 
recovered by action or indictment ; the 
slaves in question still remaining, " to all 
intents and purposes, as much in a state 
of slavery as before they were manu- 
mitted." 

Believers in human progress will be in- 
terested to know that since the law of 1801 
there has been a reform introduced into this 
part of the legislation of the republic of 
Georgia. In 1818, a new law was passed, 
which, as will be seen, contains a grand 
remedy for the abuses of the old. In this 
it is provided, with endless variety of spe- 
cifications and synonyms, as if to " let sus- 
picion double-lock the door " against any 
possible evasion, that, "All and every -will, 
testament and deed, whether by way of 
trust or otherwise, contract, or agreement, 
or stipulation, or other instrument in writing 
or by parol, made and executed for the 
purpose of effecting, or endeavoring to effect, 
the manumission of any slave or slaves, 
either directly . . .or indirectly, or vir- 
tually, &c. &c, shall be, and the same are 
hereby, declared to be utterly null and 
void." And the guilty author of the out- 
rage against the peace of the state, contem- 
plated in such deed, &c. &c, "and all and 
every person or persons concerned in giving 
or attempting to give effect thereto, . 
in any way or manner Avhatsoever, shall be 
severally liable to a penalty not exceeding 
one thousand dollars." 

It would be quite anomalous in slave-law, 
and contrary to the " great and fundamental 
policy" of slave states, if the negroes who, 
not having the fear of God before their eyes, 
but being instigated by the devil, should be 
guilty of being thus manumitted, were suf- 
fered to go unpunished ; accordingly, the law 
very properly and judiciously provides 
that " each and every slave or slaves in 
whose behalf such will or testament, &c. 
&c. &c, shall have been made, shall be 
liable to be arrested by war- „ 

n 17-7 Stroud's Sketch, pp. 

rant, etc. ; and, being there- in— s. Prince's i>i g . 
of convicted, &c, shall be 466 ' 
liable to be sold as a slave or slaves by pub- 
lic outcry ; and the proceeds of such slaves 
shall be appropriated, kc. &c." 

Judge Stroud gives the following account 
of the law of Mississippi : 

The emancipation must be by an instrument i /t 
writing, a last will or deed, &c, arona , aSfcetch m 
undo- seal, attested by at least two mj S8 . Rev. Code, 385 
credible witnesses, or acknowledged —6 (Act June 18, 
in the court of the county or cor- '" 

poration where the emancipator resides ; proof 
satisfactory to the General Assembly must be ai 



114 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



dnced that the slave has done some meritorious act 
for the bent fit of his master, or rendered some distin- 
guished service to the state; all which circumstances 
are hut pre-requisites, and are of no efficacy until a 
special act of assembly sanctions the emancipation ; 
to which may be added, as has been already stated, 
a saving of the rights of creditors, and the protec- 
tion of the widow's thirds. 

The same pre-requisite of " meritorious 
services, to be adjudged of and allowed by 
the countj court," is exacted by an act of 
the General Assembly of North Carolina ; 
and all slaves emancipated contrary to the 
provisions of this act are to be committed to 
the jail of the county, and at the next court 
held for that county are to be sold to the 
highest bidder. 

But the law of North Carolina does not 
refuse opportunity for repentance, even after 
the crime has been proved : accordingly, 

The sheriff is directed, five days before the time 
o. i. ci f v, for the sale of the emancipated negro, 

Stroud's Sketch, . , . . •■• , .1 

148. Haywood's to give notice, in writing, to the per- 
Manuai,525,526, g0 n by whom the emancipation was 
made, to the end, 

and with the hope that, smitten by remorse 
of conscience, and brought to a sense of his 
guilt before God and man, 

such person may, if he thinks proper, renew 
his claim to the negro so emancipated by him ; on 
failure to do which, the sale is to be made by the 
sheriff, and one-fifth part of the net proceeds is to 
become the property of the freeholder by whom 
the apprehension was made, and the remaining 
four-fifths are to be paid into the public treasury. 

It is proper to add that we have given 
examples of the laws of states whose legis- 
lation on this subject has been most severe. 
. . The laws of Virginia, Maryland. 

Stroud, pp. O j t • • 

148—154. Missouri, Kentucky and Louisiana, 
are much less stringent. 

A striking case, which shows how inex- 
orably the law contends with the kind de- 
signs of the master, is on record in the 
reports of legal decisions in the State of 
Mississippi. The circumstances of the case 
have been thus briefly stated in the Nev: 
York Evening Post, edited by Mr. Wil- 
liam ('alien Bryant. They are a romance 
of themselves. 



A man of the name (if Elisha Brazealle, a 
planter in Jefferson County, Mississippi, was at- 
tacked with a loathsome disease. During his ill- 
ness he was faithfully nursed by a mulatto slave, 
to whose assiduous attentions he felt that he owed 
his Life. He was duly impressed by her devotion, 
and soon after his recovery took her to Ohio, and 
had her educated. She was very intelligent, and 
improved her advantages so rapidly that when he 
visited her again he determined to marry her. He 
executed a deed for her emancipation, and had it | permit them to be evaded 



recorded both in the States of Ohio and Missis- 
sippi, and made her his wife. 

Mr. Brazealle returned with her to Missis- 
sippi, and in process of time had a. son. After a 
few years he sickened and died, leaving a will, in 
which, after reciting the deed of emancipation, he 
declared his intention to ratify it, and devised all 
his property to this lad, acknowledging him in the 
will to be such. 

Some poor and distant relations in North Car- 
olina, whom he did not know, and for whom he 
did not care, hearing of his death, came on to Mis- 
sissippi, and claimed the pi-operty thus devised. 
They instituted a suit for its recovery, and the 
case (it is reported in Howard's Mississippi Re- 
ports, vol. 11., p. 837) came before Judge Sharkey, 
our new consul at Havana. He decided it, and 
in that decision declared the act of emancipation 
an offence against morality, and pernicious and 
detestable as an example. He set aside the ivill ; 
gave the property of Brazealle to his distant rela- 
tions, condemned Brazealle's son, and his wife, that 
son's mother, again to bondage, and made them 
the slaves of these North Carolina kinsmen, as 
part of the assets of the estate. 

Chief Justice Sharkey, after nai rating 
the circumstances of the case, declares the 
validity of the deed of emancipation to*be 
the main question in the controversy. He 
then argues that, although according to 
principles of national comity ' ' contracts 
are to be construed according to the laws 
of the country or state where they are 
made," yet these principles are not to be 
followed when they lead to conclusions in 
conflict with "the great and fundamental 
policy of the state." What this " great and 
fundamental policy" is, in Mississippi. 
may be gathered from the remainder of 
the decision, which we give in full. 

Let us apply these principles to the deed of 
emancipation. To give it validity would be, in 
the first place, a violation of the declared policy, 
and contrary to a positive law of the state. 

The policy of a state is indicated by the gen- 
eral course of legislation on a given subject ; and 
we find that free negroes are deemed offensive, 
because they are not permitted to emigrate to or 
remain in the state. They are allowed few privi- 
leges, and subject to heavy penalties for offences. 
They are required to leave the state within thirty 
days after notice, and in the mean time give secu- 
rity for good behavior ; and those of them who can 
lawfully remain must register and carry with 
them their certificates, or they may bo committed 
to jail. It would also violate a positive law, 
passed by the legislature, expressly to maintain 
this settled policy, and to prevent emancipation. 
No owner can emancipate his slave, but by a deed 
or will properly attested, or acknowledged in court, 
and proof to the legislature that such slave has 
performed some meritorious act for the benefit of 
the master, or some distinguished service for the 
state ; and the deed or will ran have no validity 
until ratified by special act' of legislature. It is 
believed that this law and policy arc too essen- 
tially important to the interests of our citizens to 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



115 



The state of the case shows conclusively that 
the contract hud its origin in an offence against 
morality, pernicious and detestahle as an example. 
But, above all, it seems to have been planned and 
executed with a fixed design to evade the rigor of 
the laws of this state. The acts of the party in 
going to Ohio with the slaves, and there execut- 
ing the deed, and his immediate return with them 
to this state, point with unerring certainty to his 
purpose and object. The laws of this state can- 
not be thus defrauded of their operation by one of 
our own citizens. If we could have any doubts 
about the principle, the case reported in 1 Ran- 
dolph, 15, would remove them. 

As we think the validity of the deed must 
depend upon the laws of this state, it becomes 
unnecessary to inquire whether it could have any 
force by the laws of Ohio. If it were even valid 
there, it can have no force here. The consequence 
is, that the negroes, John Monroe and his mother, 
are still slaves, and a part of the estate of Elisha 
Brazealle. They have not acquired a right to 
their freedom under the will ; for, even if the 
clause in the will were sufficient for that purpose, 
their emancipation has not been consummated by 
an act of the legislature. 

John Monroe, being a slave, cannot take the 
property as devisee ; and I apprehend it is equal- 
ly clear that it cannot be held in trust for him. 
4 Desans. Rep. 266. Independent of the princi- 
ples laid down in adjudicated cases, our statute 
law prohibits slaves from owning certain kinds of 
property ; and it may be inferred that the legis- 
lature supposed they were extending the act as 
far as it could be necessary to exclude them from 
owning any property, as the prohibition includes 
that kind of property which they would most 
{ikely be permitted to own without interruption, 
to wit, hogs, horses, cattle, &c. They cannot be 
prohibited from holding such property in conse- 
quence of its being of a dangerous or offensive 
character, but because it was deemed impolitic 
for them to hold property of any description. It 
follows, therefore, that his heirs are entitled to 
the property. 

As the deed was void, and the devisee could 
not take under the will, the heirs might, perhaps, 
have had a remedy at law ; but, as an account 
must be taken for the rents and profits, and for 
the final settlement of the estate, I see no good 
reason why they should be sent back to law. The 
remedy is, doubtless, more full and complete than 
it eould be at law. The decree of the chancellor 
overruling the demurrer must be affirmed, and the 
cause remanded for further proceedings. 

The Chief Justice Sharkey who pro- 
nounced this decision is stated by the 
Evening Post to have been a principal 
agent in the passage of the severe law 
under which this horrible inhumanity was 
perpetrated. 

Nothing more forcibly shows the abso- 
lute despotism of the slave-law over all the 
kindest feelings and intentions of the mas- 
ter, and the determination of courts to 
carry these severities to their full lengths, 
than this cruel deed, which precipitated a 
young man who had been educated to con- 
sider himself free, asd his mother, fin edu- 



cated woman, back into the bottomless abyss 
of slavery. Had this case been chosen for 
the theme of a novel, or a tragedy, the 
world would have cried out upon it as a 
plot of monstrous improbability. As it 
stands in the law-book, it is only a speci- 
men of that awful kind of truth, stranger 
than fiction, which is all the time evolving, 
in one form or another, from the workings 
of this anomalous system. 

This view of the subject is a very im- 
portant one, and ought to be earnestly and 
gravely pondered by those in foreign coun- 
tries, who are too apt to fasten their con- 
demnation and opprobrium rather on the 
person of the slave-holder than on the hor- 
rors of the legal system. In some slave 
states it seems as if there was very little 
that the benevolent owner could do which 
should permanently benefit his slave, unless 
he should seek to alter the laws. Here 
it is that the highest obligation of the 
Southern Christian lies. Nor will the 
world or God hold them guiltless who, with 
the elective franchise in their hands, and 
the full power to speak, write and discuss, 
suffer this monstrous system of legalized 
cruelty to go on from age to age. 



CHAPTER XIY. 

THE HEBREW SLAVE-LAW COMPARED WITH 
THE AMERICAN SLAVE-LAW. 

Having compared the American law with 
the Roman, we will now compare it with 
one other code of slave-laws, to wit, the 
Hebrew. 

This comparison is the more important, 
because American slavery has been defended 
on the ground of God's permitting Hebrew 
slavery. 

The inquiry now arises, What kind of 
slavery was it that was permitted among the 
Hebrews ? for in different nations very dif- 
ferent systems have been called by the 
general name of slavery. . 

That the patriarchal state of servitude 
which existed in the time of Abraham was 
a very different thing from American slav- 
ery, a few graphic incidents in the scripture 
narrative show ; for we read that when the 
angels came to visit Abraham, although he 
had three hundred servants born in his 
house, it is said that Abraham hasted, and 
took a calf, and killed it, and gave it to a 
young man to dress ; and that he told Sarah 



116 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



to take three measures of meal and knead 
it into cakes ; and that, when all was done, 
he himself set it before his guests. 

From various other incidents which ap- 
pear in the patriarchal narrative, it would 
seem that these servants bore more the re- 
lation of the members of a Scotch clan to 
their feudal lord than that of an American 
slave to his master ; — thus it seems that if 
Abraham had died without children, his head 
servant would have been his heir. — Gen. 
15: 3. 

Of what species, then, was the slavery 
which God permitted among the Hebrews 7 
By what laws was it regulated? 

In the New Testament the whole Hebrew 
system of administration is spoken of as a 
relatively imperfect one, and as superseded 
by the Christian dispensation. — Heb. 8 : 13. 

We are taught thus to regard the Hebrew 
system as an educational system, by which 
a debased, half-civilized race, which had been 
degraded by slavery in its worst form among 
the Egyptians, was gradually elevated to 
refinement and humanity. 

As they went from the land of Egypt, it 
would appear that the most disgusting per- 
sonal habits, the most unheard-of and un- 
natural impurities, prevailed among them ; 
so that it was necessary to make laws with 
relation to things of which Christianity has 
banished the very name from the earth. 

Beside all this, polygamy, war and slav- 
ery, were the universal custom of nations. 

It is represented in the New Testament 
that God, in educating this people, proceeded 
in the same gradual manner in which a wise 
father would proceed with a family of children. 

He selected a few of the most vital points 
of evil practice, and forbade them by positive 
statute, under rigorous penalties. 

The worship of any other god was, by 
the Jewish law, constituted high- treason, 
and rigorously punished with death. 

As the knowledge of the true God and re- 
ligious instruction could not then, as now, be 
afforded by printing and books, one day in the 
week had to be set apart for preserving in 
the minds of the people a sense of His being, 
and their obligations to Ilirn. The devoting of 
thi3 day to any other purpose was also pun- 
ished with death ; and the reason is obvious, 
that' its sacrcdness was the principal means 
relied on for preserving the allegiance of the 
nation to their king and God, and its dese- 
cration, of course, led directly to high trea- 
son against the head of the state. 

With regard to many other practices which 
prevailed among the Jews, as among other 



heathen nations, we find the Divine Being 
taking the same course which wise human 
legislators have taken. 

When Lycurgus wished to banish money 
and its attendant luxuries from Sparta, he 
did not forbid it by direct statute-law, but 
he instituted a currency so clumsy and un- 
comfortable that, as we are informed by Rol- 
lin, it took a cart and pair of oxen to carry 
home the price of a very moderate estate. 

In the same manner the Divine Being 
surrounded the customs of polygamy, war, 
blood-revenge and slavery, with regulations 
which gradually and certainly tended to 
abolish them entirely. 

No one would pretend that the laws which 
God established in relation to polygamy, 
cities of refuge, &c, have any application 
to Christian nations now. 

The following summary of some of these 
laws of the Mosaic code is given by Dr. C. 
E. Stowe, Professor of Biblical Literature 
in Andover Theological Seminary : 

1. It commanded a Hebrew, even though a mar- 
ried man, with wife and children living, to take the 
childless widow of a deceased brother, and beget 
children with her. — Deut. 25 : 5 — 10. 

2. The Hebrews, under certain restrictions , were 
allowed to make concubines, or wives for a limited 
time, of women taken in war. — Deut. 21 : 10 — 19. 

3. A Hebrew who already had a wife was al- 
lowed to take another also, provided he still con- 
tinued his intercourse with the first as her hus- 
band, and treated her kindly and affectionately. — 
Exodus 21: 9—11. 

4. By the Mosaic law, the nearest relative of a 
murdered Hebrew could pursue and slay the mur- 
derer, unless he could escape to the city of refuge ; 
and the same permission was given in case of 
accidental homicide. — Num. 35 : 9 — 39. 

5. The Israelites were commanded to extermi 
nate the Canaanites,men, women and children. — 
Deut. 9 : 12 ; 20 : 16—18. 

'Any one, or all, of the above practices, can be 
justified by the Mosaic law, as well as the practice 
of slave-holding. 

Each of these laws, although in its time it was 
an ameliorating law, designed to take the place of 
some barbarous abuse, and to be a connecting link 
by which some higher state of society might be 
introduced, belongs confessedly to that system 
which St. Paul says made nothing perfect. 
They are a part of the commandment which he 
says was annulled for the weakness and unprofit- 
ableness thereof, and which, in the time which he 
wrote, was waxing old, and ready to vanish away. 
And Christ himself says, with regard to certain 
permissions of this system, that they were given on 
account of the " hardness of their hearts," — be- 
cause the attempt to enforce a more stringent sys- 
tem at that time, owing to human depravity, 
would have only produced greater abuses. 

The following view of the Hebrew laws 
of slavery is compiled from Barnes' work 
on slavery, and from Professor Stowe's 
manuscript lectures. 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



117 



The legislation commenced by making the 
great and common source of slavery — kid- 
napping — a capital crime. 

The enactment is as follows : "He that 
stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be 
found in his hand, he shall surely be put to 
death." —Exodus 21 : 16. 

The sources from which slaves were to 
be obtained were thus reduced to two : first, 
the voluntary sale of an individual by him- 
self, which certainly does not come under 
the designation of involuntary servitude ; 
second, the appropriation of captives taken 
in war, and the buying from the heathen. 

With regard to the servitude of the 
Hebrew by a voluntary sale of himself, such 
servitude, by the statute-law of the land, 
came to an end once in seven years ; so that 
the worst that could be made of it was that 
it was a voluntary contract to labor for a 
certain time. 

With regard to the servants bought of the 
heathen, or of foreigners in the land, there 
was a statute by which their servitude was 
annulled once in fifty years. 

It has been supposed, from a disconnected 
view of one particular passage in the Mosaic 
code, that God directly countenanced the 
treating of a slave, who was a stranger and 
foreigner, with more rigor and severity than 
a Hebrew slave. That this was not the 
case will appear from the following enact- 
ments, which have express reference to 
strangers : 

The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be 
unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt 
love him as thyself. — Lev. 19 : 34. 

Thou shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress 
him ; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. 

— Exodus 22: 21. 

Thou shalt not oppress a stranger, for ye know 
the heart of a stranger. — Exodus 23 : 9. 

The Lord your God regardeth not persons. He 
doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and 
the widow, and loveth the stranger in giving him 
food and raiment ; love ye therefore the stranger. 

— Deut. 10 : 17—19. 

Judge righteously between every man and his 
brother, and the stranger that is with him. — 
Deut. 1 : 16. 

Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the 
stranger. — Deut. 27 : 19. 

Instead of making slavery an oppressive 
institution with regard to the stranger, it was 
made by God a system within which heathen 
were adopted into the Jewish state, educated 
and instructed in the worship of the true 
God, and in due time emancipated. 

In the first place, they were protected by 
law from personal violence. The loss of an 
eye or a tooth, through the violence of his 
master, took the slave out of that master's 



power entirely, and gave him his liberty- 
Then, further than this, if a master's con- 
duct towards a slave was such as to induce 
him to run away, it was enjoined that no- 
body should assist in retaking him, and that 
he should dwell wherever he chose in the 
land, without molestation. Third, the law 
secured to the slave a very considerable por- 
tion of time, which was to be at his own 
disposal. Every seventh year was to be at 
his own disposal. — Lev. 25 : 4 — 6. Every 
seventh day was, of course, secured to him. 
— Ex. 20 : 10. 

The servant had the privilege of attend- 
ing the three great national festivals, when 
all the males of the nation were required 
to appear before God in Jerusalem. — Ex. 
34: 23. 

Each of these festivals, it is computed, 
took up about three weeks. 

The slave also was to be a guest in the 
family festivals. In Deut. 12 : 12, it is 
said, "Ye shall rejoice before the Lord 
your God, ye, and your sons, and your 
daughters, and your men-servants, and your 
maid-servants, and the Levite that is within 
your gates." 

Dr. Barnes estimates that the whole 
amount of time which a servant could have 
to himself would amount to about twenty- 
three years out of fifty, or nearly one-half 
his time. 

Again, the servant was placed on an ex- 
act equality with his master in all that con- 
cerned his religious relations. 

Now, if we recollect that in the time of 
Moses the God and the king of the nation 
were one and the same person, and that the 
civil and religious relation were one and the 
same, it will appear that the slave and his 
master stood on an equality in their civil 
relation with regard to the state. 

Thus, in Deuteronomy 29, is described a 
solemn national convocation, which took 
place before the death of Moses, when the 
whole nation were called upon, after a 
solemn review of their national history, to 
renew their constitutional oath of allegiance 
to their supreme Magistrate and Lord. 

On this occasion, Moses addressed them 
thus : — "Ye stand this day, all of you, 
before the Lord your God ; your captains of 
your tribes, your elders, and your officers, 
with all the men of Israel, your little ones, 
your wives, and thy stranger that is in thy 
camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the 
drawer of thy water ; that thou shouldest 
enter into covenant with the Lord thy God, 
and into his oath, which the Lord thy God 
maketh with thee this day." 



118 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 



How different is this from the cool and 
explicit declaration of South Carolina with 
regard to the position of the American 
slave : — "A slave is not generally regarded 
as legally capable of being 
Slavery , T T within the peace of the state. 
243 - He is not a citizen, and is not in 
that character entitled to her protection." 

In all the religious services, which, as we 
have seen bj the constitution of the nation, 
were civil services, the slave and the master 
mingled on terms of strict equality. There 
was none of the distinction which appertains 
to a distinct class or caste. " There was 
no special service appointed for them at 
unusual seasons. There were no particular 
seats assigned to them, to keep up the idea 
that they were a degraded class. There 
was no withholding from them the instruc- 
tion which the word of God gave about the 
equal rights of mankind." 

Fifthly. It was always contemplated that 
the slave would, as a matter of course, 
choose the Jewish religion, and the service 
of God, and enter willingly into all the ob- 
ligations and services of the Jewish polity. 

Mr. Barnes cites the words of Maimoni- 
des, to show how this was commonly un- 
derstood by the Hebrews. — Inquiry into 
the Scriptural Views of Slavery. By Al- 
bert Barnes, p. 132. 

"Whether a servant be born in the power of 
an Israelite, or whether he be purchased from the 
heathen, the master is to bring them both into the 
covenant. 

But he that is in the house is entered on the 
eighth day ; and he that is bought with money, 
on the day on which his master receives him, un- 
less the slave be unwilling. For, if the master 
receive a grown slave, and he be unwilling, his 
master is to bear with him, to seek to win him 
over by instruction, and by love and kindness, for 
one year. After which, should he refuse so long, 
it is forbidden to keep him longer than a year. 
And the master must send him back to the strang- 
ers from whence he came. For the God of Jacob 
will not accept any other than the worship of a 
willing heart. — Maimon. Hilcoth Milulh, chap. 
i., sec. 8. 

A sixth fundamental arrangement with 
regard to the Hebrew slave was that he 
could never be sold. ' Concerning this Mr. 
Barnes remarks : 

A man, in certain circumstances, might be 
bought by a Hebrew ; but when once bought, that 
was an end of the matter. There is not the 
slightest evidence that any Hebrew ever sold 
a slave ; and any provision contemplating that 
was unknown to the constitution of the Common- 
wealth. It is said of Abraham that he had " ser- 
vants bought with money ;" but there is no record 
of his having ever sold one, nor is there any ac- 
count of its ever having been done by Isaac or 



Jacob. The only instance of a sale of this kind 
among the patriarchs is that act of the brothers of 
Joseph, which is held up to so strong reprobation, 
by which they sold him to the Ishmaelites. Per- 
mission is given in the law of Moses to buy a 
servant, but none is given to sell him again ; and 
the fact that no such permission is given is full 
proof that it was not contemplated. When he 
entered into that relation, it became certain that 
there could be no change, unless it was voluntary 
on his part (comp. Ex. 21 : 5, 6), or unless hia 
master gave him his freedom, until the not dis- 
tant period fixed by law when he could be free. 
There is no arrangement in the law of Moses by 
which servants were to be taken in payment of 
their master's debts, by which they were to be 
given as pledges, by which they were to be con- 
signed to the keeping of others, or by which they 
were to be given away as presents. There are no 
instances occurring in the Jewish history in which 
any of these things were done. This law is posi- 
tive in regard to the Hebrew servant, and the 
principle of the law would apply to all others. 
Lev. 25 : 42. — " They shall not be sold as bond 
men." In all these respects there was a marked 
difference, and there was doubtless intended to be, 
between the estimate affixed to servants and to 
property. — Inquiry, &c, p. 133 — 4. 

As to the practical workings of this sys- 
tem, as they are developed in the incidents 
of sacred history, they are precisely what 
we should expect from such a system of 
laws. For instance, we find it mentioned 
incidentally in the ninth chapter of the first 
book of Samuel, that when Saul and his ser- 
vant came to see Samuel, that Samuel, in 
anticipation of his being crowned king, made 
a great feast for him ; and in verse twenty- 
second the history says : " And Samuel 
took Saul and his servant, and brought 
them into the parlor, and made them sit 
in the chiefest place." 

We read, also, in 2 Samuel 9 : 10, of a 
servant of Saul who had large estates, and 
twenty servants of his own. 

We find, in 1 Chron. 2 : 34, the follow- 
ing incident related : " Now, Sheshan had 
no sons, but daughters. And Sheshan had 
a servant, an Egyptian, whose name was 
Jarha. And Sheshan gave his daughter to 
Javba, his servant, to wife." 

Does this resemble American slavery ? 

We find, moreover, that this connection 
was not considered at all disgraceful, for the 
son of this very daughter was enrolled 
among the valiant men of David's army. — 
1 Chron. 2 : 41. 

In fine, we are not surprised to discover 
that the institutions of Moses in effect so 
obliterated all the characteristics of slavery, 
that it had ceased to exist among the Jews 
Ion"- before the time of Christ. Mr. Barnes 
asks : 

On what evidence would a man rely to prove 



KEY TO UNCLE TOMS CABIN. 



119 



ing ; there is nothing in 
which it stands 



that slavery existed at all in the land in the time 
of the later prophets of the Maccabees, or when 
the Saviour appeared? There are abundant 
proofs, as we shall see, that it existed in Greece 
and Rome ; but what is the evidence that it ex- 
isted in Judea ? So far as I have been able to 
ascertain, there are no declarations that it did to 
be found in the canonical books of the Old Tes- 
tament, or in Josephus. There are no allusions 
to laws and customs which imply that it was prev- 
alent. There are no coins or medals which sup- 
pose it. There are no facts which do not admit 
of an easy explanation on the supposition that 
slavery had ceased. — Inquiry, &c, p. 226. 

Two objections have been urged to the 
interpretations which have been given of two 
of the enactments before quoted. 

1. It is said that the enactment, " Thou 
shalt not return to his master the servant 
that has escaped," &c, relates only to ser- 
vants escaping from heathen masters to the 
Jewish nation. 

The following remarks on this passage 
are from Prof. Stowe's lectures: 

Deuteronomy 23: 15, 16. — These words 
make a statute which, like every other stat- 
ute, is to be strictly construed. There is 
nothing in the language to limit its mean- 
the connection in 
to limit its meaning ; nor 
is there anything in the history of the Mo- 
saic legislation to limit the application of 
this statute to the case of servants escaping 
from foreign masters. The assumption that 
it is thus limited is wholly gratuitous, and 
so far as the Bible is concerned, unsustained 
by any evidence whatever. It is said that 
it would be absurd for Moses to enact such 
a law while servitude existed among the 
Hebrews. It would indeed be absurd, were 
it the object of the Mosaic legislation to sus- 
tain and perpetuate slavery ; but, if it were 
the object of Moses to limit and to restrain, 
and finally to extinguish slavery, this statute 
was admirably adapted to his purpose. 
That it was the object of Moses to extin- 
guish, and not to perpetuate, slavery, is per- 
fectly clear from the whole course of his 
legislation on the subject. Every slave 
was to have all the religious privileges 
and instruction to which his master's chil- 
dren were entitled. Every seventh year 
released the Hebrew slave, and every fiftieth 
year produced universal emancipation. If 
a master, by an accidental or an angry 
blow, deprived the slave of a tooth,- the 
slave, by that act, was forever free. And 
so, by the statute in question, if the slave 
felt himself oppressed, he could make 
his escape, and, though the master was 
not forbidden to retake him if he could, 



every one was forbidden to aid his master in 
doing it. This statute, in fact, made the 
servitude voluntary, and that was what 
Moses intended. 

Moses dealt with slavery precisely as he 
dealt with polygamy and with war : with- 
out directly prohibiting, he so restricted as 
to destroy it ; instead of cutting down the 
poison-tree, he girdled it, and left it to die 
of itself. There is a statute in regard to 
military expeditions precisely analogous to 
this celebrated fugitive slave law. Had 
Moses designed to perpetuate a warlike 
spirit among the Hebrews, the statute would 
have been preeminently absurd ; but, if it 
was his design to crush it, and to render 
foreign wars almost impossible, the statute 
was exactly adapted to his purpose. It 
rendered foreign military service, in effect, 
entirely voluntary, just as the fugitive law 
rendered domestic servitude, in effect, 
voluntary. 

The law may be found at length in Deu- 
teronomy 20 : 5 — 10 ; and let it be care- 
fully read and compared with the fugitive 
slave law already adverted to. Just when 
the men are drawn up ready for the expe- 
dition, — just at the moment when even the 
hearts of brave men are apt to fail them, — 
the officers are commanded to address the 
soldiers thus : 

" What man of you is there that hath built a 
new house, and hath not dedicated it ? Let him 
go and return to his house, lest he die in the bat- 
tle, and another man dedicate it. 

" And what man is he that hath planted a vine- 
yard and hath not yet eaten of it ? Let him also 
go and return to his house, lest he die in the bat- 
tle, and another man eat of it. 

" And what man is there that hath betrothed a 
wife, and hath not taken her ? Let him go and 
return unto his house, lest he die in the battle, 
and another man take her." 

And the officers shall speak further unto the 
people, and they shall say, " What man is there 
that is fearful and faint-hearted? Let him go 
and return unto his house, lest his brethren's 
heart faint, as well as his heart." 

Now, consider that the Hebrews were ex- 
clusively an agricultural people, that warlike 
parties necessarily consist mainly of young 
men, and that by this statute every man 
who had built a house which he had not 
yet lived in, and every man who had plant- 
ed a vineyard from which he had not yet 
gathered fruit, and every man who had en- 
gaged a w T ife whom he had not yet married, 
and every one who felt timid and faint- 
hearted, was permitted and commanded to 
go home, — how many would there probably 
be left ? Especially when the officers, in- 



120 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 



stead of exciting their military ardor by 
visions of glory and of splendor, were com- 
manded to repeat it over and over again 
that they would probably die in the battle 
and never get home, and hold this idea up 
before them as if it were the only idea suit- 
able for their purpose, how excessively ab- 
surd is the whole statute considered as a 
military law, — just as absurd as the Mosaic 
fugitive law, understood in its widest appli- 
cation, is, considered as a slave law ! 

It is clearly the object of this military 
law to put an end to military expeditions ; 
for, with this law in force, such expeditions 
must always be entirely volunteer expedi- 
tions. Just as clearly was it the object of 
the fugitive slave law to put an end to com- 
pulsory servitude; for, with that law in 
force, the servitude must, in effect, be, to a 
great extent, voluntary, — and that is just 
what the legislator intended. There is no 
possibility of limiting the law, on account 
of its absurdity, when understood in its 
widest sense, except by proving that the 
Mosaic legislation was designed to perpetu- 
ate and not to limit slavery ; and this cer- 
tainly cannot be proved, for it is directly 
contrary to the plain matter of fact. 

I repeat it, then, again : there is nothing 
in the language of this statute, there is 
nothing in the connection in which it stands, 
there is nothing in the history of the Mo- 
saic legislation on this subject, to limit the 
application of the law to the case of ser- 
vants escaping from foreign masters : but 
every consideration, from every legitimate 
source, leads us to a conclusion directly the 
opposite. Such a limitation is the arbitrary, 
unsupported stet voluntas pro rat lone as- 
sumption of the commentator, and nothing 
else. The only shadow of a philological 
argument that I can see, for limiting the 
statute, is found in the use of the words to 
thee, in the fifteenth verse. It may be said 
that the pronoun thee is used in a national 
and not individual sense, implying an es- 
cape from some other nation to the He- 
brews. But, examine the statute imme- 
diately preceding this, and observe the use 
of the pronoun thee in the thirteenth verse. 
Most obviously, the pronouns in these 
statutes are used with reference to the indi- 
viduals addressed, and not in a collective 
or national sense exclusively ; very rarely, 
if ever, can this sense be given to them 
in the way claimed by the argument re- 
ferred to. 

2. It is said that the proclamation, "Thou 
shalt proclaim liberty through tho land to 



all the inhabitants thereof," related only ta 
Hebrew slaves. This assumption is based 
entirely on the supposition that the slave 
was not considered, in Hebrew law, as a 
person, as an inhabitant of the land, and a 
member of the state; but we have just 
proved that in the most solemn transaction 
of the state the hewer of wood and drawer 
of water is expressly designated as beino- 
just as much an actor and participator as 
his master ; and it would be absurd to sup- 
pose that, in a statute addressed to all the 
inhabitants of the land, he is not included 
as an inhabitant. 

Barnes enforces this idea by some pages 
of quotations from Jewish writers, which 
will fully satisfy any one who reads his 
work. 

From a review, then, of all that relates 
to the Hebrew slave-law, it will appear that 
it was a very well-considered and wisely- 
adapted system of education and gradual 
emancipation. No rational man can doubt 
that if the same laws were enacted and the 
same practices prevailed with regard to 
slavery in the United States, that the system 
of American slavery might be considered, to 
all intents and purposes, practically at an 
end. If there is any doubt of this fact, and 
it is still thought that the permission of 
slavery among the Hebrews justifies Ameri- 
can slavery, in all fairness the experiment 
of making the two systems alike ought to 
be tried, and we should then see what would 
be the result. 



CHAPTER XV. 

SLAVERY IS DESPOTISM. 

It is always important, in discussing a 
thing, to keep before our minds exactly what 
it is. 

The only means of understanding pre- 
cisely what a civil institution is are an 
examination of the laws which regulate it. 
In different ages and nations, very different 
things have been called by the name of 
slavery. Patriarchal servitude was one 
thing, Hebrew servitude was another, Greek 
and Roman servitude still a third ; and these 
institutions differed very much from each 
other. What, then, is American slavery, 
as we have seen it exhibited by law, and by 
the decisions of courts 'I 

Let us begin by stating what it is not. 

1. It is not apprenticeship. 

2. It is not guardianship. 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



121 



3. It is in no sense a system for the 
education of a weaker race by a stronger. 

4. The happiness of the governed is in no 
sense its object. 

5. The temporal improvement or the eter- 
nal well-being of the governed is in no sense 
its object. 

The object of it has been distinctly stated 
in one sentence, by Judge Ruffin, — "The 
end is the profit of the master, his security, 
and the public safety." 

Slavery, then, is absolute despotism, of 
the most unmitigated form. 

It would, however, be doing injustice to 
the absolutism of any civilized country to 
liken American slavery to it. The absolute 
governments of Europe none of them pre- 
tend to be founded on a 'property right of 
the governor to the persons and entire capa- 
bilities of the governed. 

This is a form of despotism which exists 
only in some of the most savage countries 
of the world ; as, for example, in Dahomey. 
The European absolutism or despotism, 
now, does, to some extent, recognize the 
happiness and welfare of the governed as 
the foundation of government ; and the ruler 
is considered as invested with power for the 
benefit of the people ; and his right to rule 
is supposed to be in somewhat predicated 
upon the idea that he better understands how 
to promote the good of the people than they 
themselves do. No government in the civ- 
ilized world now presents the pure despotic 
idea, as it existed in the old days of the 
Persian and Assyrian rule. 

The arguments which defend slavery 
must be substantially the same as those 
which defend despotism of any other kind ; 
and the objections which are to be urged 
against it are precisely those which can be 
urged against despotism of any other kind. 
The customs and practices to which it gives 
rise are precisely those to which despotisms 
in all ages have given rise. 

Is the slave suspected of a crime 1 His 
master has the power to examine him by 
torture (see State v. Castleman). His mas- 
ter has, in fact, in most cases, the power of 
life and death, owing to the exclusion of the 
slave's evidence. He has the power of ban- 
ishing the slave, at any time, and without 
giving an account to anybody, to an exile 
as dreadful as that of Siberia, and to labors 
as severe as those of the galleys. He has 
also unlimited power over the character of 
his slave. He can accuse him of any crime, 
yet withhold from him all right of trial ov 
investigation, and sell him into captivity, 



with his name blackened by an unexamined 
imputation. 

These are all abuses for which despotic 
governments are blamed. They are powers 
which good men who are despotic rulers are 
beginning to disuse ; but, under the flag of 
every slave-holding state, and under the flag 
of the whole United States in the District 
of Columbia, they are committed indiscrim- 
inately to men of any character. 

But the worst kind of despotism has been 
said to be that which extends alike over the 
body and over the soul ; which can bind the 
liberty of the conscience, and deprive a man 
of all right of choice in respect to the man- 
ner in which he shall learn the will of God, 
and worship Him. In other days, kings on 
their thrones', and cottagers by their fire- 
sides, alike trembled before a despotism 
which declared itself able to bind and to 
loose, to open and to shut the kingdom of 
heaven. 

Yet this power to control the conscience, 
to control the religious privileges, and all 
the opportunities which man has of acquaint- 
anceship with his Maker, and of learning to 
do his will, is, under the flag of every slave 
state, and under the flag of the United 
States, placed in the hands of any men, of 
any character, who can afford to pay for it. 

It is a most awful and most solemn truth 
that the greatest republic in the world does 
sustain under her national flag the worst 
system of despotism which can possibly 
exist. 

With regard to one point to which we 
have adverted, — the power of the master to 
deprive the slave of a legal trial while accus- 
ing him of crime, — a very striking instance 
has occurred in the District of Columbia, 
within a year or two. The particulars of 
the case, as stated, at the time, in several 
papers, were briefly these : A gentleman in 
Washington, our national capital, — an elder 
in the Presbyterian church, — held a female 
slave, who had, for some years, supported a 
good character in a Baptist church of that 
city. He accused her of an attempt to poi- 
son his family, and immediately placed her 
in the hands of a slave-dealer, who took her 
over and imprisoned her in the slave-pen at 
Alexandria, to await the departure of a 
coffle. The poor girl had a mother, who 
felt as any mother would naturally feel. 

When apprized of the situation of her 
daughter, she flew to the pen, and, with 
tears, besought an interview with her only 
child; but she was cruelly repulsed, and told 
to be gone ! She then tried to see the elder, 



122 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 



but failed. She had the promise of money 
sufficient to purchase her daughter, but the 
owner would listen to no terms of compro- 
mise. 

In her distress, the mother repaired to a 
lawyer in the city, and begged him to give 
form to her petition in writing. She stated 
to him what she wished to have said, and he 
arranged it for her in such a form as she 
herself might have presented it in, had not 
the benefits of education been denied her. 
The following; is the letter : 



Mr. 



Washington, July 25, 1851. 



Sir : I address you as a rich Christian freeman 
and father, while I am myself but a poor slave- 
mother ! I come to plead with you for an only child 
whom I love, who is a professor of the Christian 
religion with yourself, and a member of a Chris- 
tian church ; and who, by your act of ownership, 
now pines in her imprisonment in a loathsome 
man-warehouse, where she is held for sale ! I 
come to plead with you for the exercise of that 
blessed law, " Whatsoever ye would that men 
should do unto you, do ye even so to them." 

With great labor, I have found friends who are 
willing to aid me in the purchase of my child, to 
save us from a cruel separation. You, nsafathcr, 
can judge of my feelings when I was told that 
you had decreed her banishment to distant as well 
as to hopeless bondage ! 

For nearly six years my child has done for you 
the hard labor of a slave; from the age of sixteen 
to twenty-two, she has done the hard work of your 
chamber, kitchen, cellar, and stables. By night 
and by day, your will and your commands have 
been her highest law ; and all this has been unre- 
quited toil. If in all this time her scanty allow- 
ance of tea and coffee has been sweetened, it lias 
been at the cost of her slave-mother, and not at 
yours. 

You are an office-bearer in the church, and a 
man of prayer. As such, and as the absolute 
owner of my child, I ask candidly whether she 
has enjoyed such mild and gentle treatment, and 
amiable example, as she ought to have had, to 
encourage her in her monotonous bondage ? Has 
she received at your hands, in faithful religious 
instruction in the \Vord of God, a full and fair 
compensation for all her toil ? It is not to me alone 
that you must answer these questions. You ac- 
knowledge the high authority of 1 1 is laws who 
preached a deliverance to the captive, and who 
commands you to give to your servant " that which 
is just and equal." 0! 1 entreat you, withhold 
not, at this trying hour, from my child that which 
will cut oil" her last hope, and which may endanger 
your own soul ! 

It has been said that you charge my daughter 
with crime. Can this be really so! Can it be 
that you would set aside the obligations of honor 
and good citizenship, — that you would dare to sell 
the guilty one away for money, rather than bring 
her to trial, which you know she is ready to meet '! 
What would you say, if you were accused of guilt, 
and refused a trial 1 Is not her fair name as pre- 
cious to her, in the church to which she belongs, 
as yours can be to you ? 



Suppose, now, for a mement, that your daugh* 
ter, whom you love,- instead of mine, was in these 
hot days incarcerated in a negro-pen, subject to 
my control, fed on the coarsest food, committed 
to the entire will of a brute, denied the privilege 
commonly allowed even to the murderer — that of 
seeing the face of his friends? 0! then, you 
would feel! Feel soon, then, for a poor slave- 
mother and her child, and do for us as you shall 
wish you had done when we shall meet before 
the Great Judge,, and when it shall be your great- 
est joy to say, " I did let the oppressed free." 

Ellen Brown. 

The girl, however, was sent off to the 
Southern market. 

The writer has received these incidints 
from the gentleman who wrote the letter. 
Whether the course pursued by the master 
was strictly legal is a point upon which we 
are not entirely certain ; that it was a course 
in which the law did not in fact interfere is 
quite plain, and it is also very apparent that 
it was a course against which public senti- 
ment did not remonstrate. The man who 
exercised this power was a professedly reli- 
gious man, enjoying a position of importance 
in a Christian church ; and it does not ap- 
pear, from any movements in the Christian 
community about him, that they did not 
consider his course a justifiable one. 

Yet is not this kind of power the very 
one at which we are so shocked when Ave see 
it exercised by foreign despots l 

Do we not read with shuddering that in 
Russia, or in Austria, a man accused of 
crime is seized upon, separated from his 
friends, allowed no opportunities of trial or 
of self-defence, but hurried off to Siberia, or 
some other dreaded exile ? 

Why is despotism any worse in the gov- 
ernor of a state than in a private individual ? 

There is a great controversy now going 
on in the world between the despotic and 
the republican principle. All the common 
arguments used in support of slavery are 
arguments that apply with equal strength 
to despotic government, and there are some 
arguments in favor of despotic governments 
that do not apply to individual slavery. 

There are arguments, and quite plausible 
ones, in favor of despotic government. No- 
body can deny that it possesses a certain 
kind of efficiency, compactness, and prompt- 
ness of movement, which cannot, from the 
nature of things, belong to a republic. Des- 
potism has established and sustained much 
more efficient systems of police than ever a 
republic did. The late King of Prussia, by 
the possession of absolute despotic power 
was enabled to carry out a much more effi- 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



123 



cient system of popular education than we 
ever have succeeded in carrying out in 
America. He districted his kingdom in the 
most thorough manner, and obliged every 
parent, whether he would or not, to have his 
children thoroughly educated. 

If we reply to all this, as we do, that the 
possession of absolute power in a man qual- 
ified to use it right is undoubtedly calcu- 
lated for the good of the state, but that there 
are so few men that know how to use it, 
that this form of government is not, on the 
whole, a safe one, then we have stated an 
argument that goes to overthrow slavery as 
much as it does a despotic government ; for 
certainly the chances are much greater of 
finding one man, in the course of fifty years, 
who is capable of wisely using this power, 
than of finding thousands of men every 
day in our streets, who can be trusted with 
such power. It is a painful and most seri- 
ous fact, that America trusts to the hands 
of the most brutal men of her country, 
equally with the best, that despotic power 
which she thinks an unsafe thing even in 
the hands of the enlightened, educated and 
cultivated Emperor of the Russias. 

With all our republican prejudices, we 
cannot deny that Nicholas is a man of talent, 
with a mind liberalized by education ; we 
have been informed, also, that he is a man 
of serious and religious character ; — he cer- 
tainly, acting as he does in the eye of all 
the world, must have great restraint upon 
him from public opinion, and a high sense of 
character. But who is the man to whom 
American laws intrust powers more absolute 
than those of Nicholas of Russia, or Ferdi- 
nand of Naples ? He may have been a 
pirate on the high seas ; he may be a drunk- 
ard; he may, like Souther, have been con- 



victed of a brutality at which humanity turns 
pale ; but, for all that, American slave-law 
will none the less trust him with this irre- 
sponsible power, — power over the body, and 
power over the soul. 

On which side, then, stands the American 
nation, in the great controversy which is 
now going on between self-government and 
despotism '? On which side does America 
stand, in the great controversy for liberty of 
conscience ? 

Do foreign governments exclude their 
population from the reading of the Bible 1 

— The slave of America is excluded by the 
most effectual means possible. Do we say, 
" Ah ! but Ave read the Bible to our slaves, 
and present the gospel orally 1 " — This is 
precisely what religious despotism in Italy 
says. Do we say that we have no objection 
to our slaves reading the Bible, if they will 
stop there ; but that with this there will come 
in a flood of general intelligence, which will 
upset the existing state of things 1 — This is 
precisely what is said in Italy. 

Do we say we should be willing that the 
slave should read his Bible, but that he, in 
his ignorance, will draw false and erroneous 
conclusions from it, and for that reason we 
prefer to impart its truths to him orally 7 

— This, also, is precisely what the religious 
despotism of Europe says. 

Do we say, in our vain-glory, that despotic 
government dreads the coming in of any- 
thing calculated to elevate and educate the 
people ? — And is there not the same dread 
through all the despotic slave governments 
of America ? 

On which side, then, does the American 
nation stand, in the great, last question of 
the age? 



PART III. 



CHAPTER I. 

DOES PUBLIC OPINION PROTECT THE SLAVE 1 

The utter inefficiency of the law to pro- 
tect the slave in any respect has been shown. 

But it is claimed that, precisely because 
the law affords the slave no protection, 
therefore public opinion is the more strenu- 
ous in his behalf. 

Nothing more frequently strikes the eye, 
in running over judicial proceedings in the 
courts of slave stntes, than announcements of 
the utter inutility of the law to rectify some 
glaring injustice towards this unhappy race, 
coupled with congratulatory remarks on 
that beneficent state of public sentiment 
which is to supply entirely this acknowl- 
edged deficiency of the law. 

On this point it may, perhaps, be suffi- 
cient to ask the reader, whether North or 
South, to review in his own mind the judi- 
cial documents which we have presented, and 
ask himself what inference is to be drawn, 
as to the state of public sentiment, from 
the cases there presented, — from the pleas 
of lawyers, the decisions of judges, the facts 
sworn to by witnesses, and the general style 
and spirit of the whole proceedings. 

In order to appreciate this more fully, let 
us compare a trial in a free state with a 
trial in a slave state. 

In the free State of Massachusetts, a man 
of standing, learning and high connections, 
murdered another man. He did not torture 
him, but with one blow sent him in a 
moment from life. The murderer had every 
advantage of position, of friends ; it may be 
said, indeed, that he had the sympathy of 
the whole United States ; yet how calmly, 
with what unmoved and awful composure, 
did the judicial examination proceed ! The 
murderer was condemned to die — what a 
sensation shook the country ! Even sover- 
eign states assumed the attitude of petition- 
ers for him. 

There was a voice of entreaty, from Maine 



to New Orleans. There were remonstrances, 
and there were threats ; but still, with what 
passionless calmness retributive justice held 
on its way ! Though the men who were 
her instruments were men of merciful and 
bleeding hearts, yet they bowed in silence 
to her sublime will. In spite of all that 
influence and wealth and power could do, a 
cultivated and intelligent man, from the first 
rank of society, suffered the same penalty 
that would fall on any other man who vio- 
lated the sanctity of human life. 

Now, compare this with a trial in a slave 
state. In Virginia, Souther also murdered 
a man ; but he did not murder him by one 
merciful blow, but by twelve hours of torture 
so horrible that few readers could bear even 
the description of it. It was a mode of 
death which, to use the language that Cicero 
in his day applied to crucifixion, ' ' ought 
to be forever removed from the sight, hear- 
ing, and from the very thoughts of man- 
kind." And to this horrible scene two 
white men were witnesses ! 

Observe the mode in which these two 
cases were tried, and the general sensation 
they produced. Hear the lawyers, in this 
case of Souther, coolly debating whether it 
can be considered any crime at all. Hear 
the decision of the inferior court, that it is 
murder in the second degree, and appor- 
tioning as its reward five years of imprison- 
ment. See the horrible butcher coming up 
to the Superior Court in the attitude of an 
injured man ! Sec the case recorded as that 
of Souther versus The Conwionirealth, 
and let us ask any intelligent man, North 
or South, what sort of public sentiment does 
this show ! 

Docs it show a belief that the negro is a 
man .' Does it not show decidedly that he is 
not considered as a man? Consider further 
the horrible principle which, reaffirmed in 
the case, is the law of the land in Virginia. 
// is the policy of the law, in respect to 
the relation of master and slave, and for 



KE5T TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



125 



the sake of securing proper subordination 
on the part of the slave, to protect the 
'master from prosecution in all such cases, 
even if the whipping and punishment be 
malicious, cruel and excessive! 

When the most cultivated and intelligent 
men in the state formally, calmly and 
without any apparent perception of saying 
anything inhuman, utter such an astounding 
decision as this, what can be thought of it ') 
If they do not consider this cruel, what is 
cruel 1 And, if their feelings are so blunted 
as to see no cruelty in such a decision, what 
hope is there of any protection to the slave? 

This law is a plain and distinct permis- 
sion to such wretches as Souther to inflict 
upon the helpless slave any torture they 
may choose, without any accusation or 
mpeachment of crime. It distinctly tells 
Souther, and the white witnesses who saw 
his deed, and every other low, unprincipled 
man in the court, that it is the policy of 
the law to protect him in malicious, cruel 
and excessive punishments. 

What sort of an education is this for the 
intelligent and cultivated men of a state to 
communicate to the lower and less-educated 
class ? Suppose it to be solemnly announced 
in Massachusetts, with respect to free laborers 
or apprentices, that it is the policy of the 
law, for the sake of producing subordination, 
to protect the master in inflicting any pun- 
ishment, however cruel, malicious and ex- 
cessive, short of death. We cannot imagine 
such a principle declared, without a rebel- 
lion and a storm of popular excitement to 
which that of Bunker Hill was calmness 
itself; — but, supposing the State of Massa- 
chusetts were so "twice dead and plucked up 
by the roots" as to allow such a decision to 
pass without comment concerning her work- 
ing classes, — suppose it did pass, and be- 
come an active, operative reality, what kind 
of an educational influence would it exert 
upon the commonwealth l What kind of 
an estimate of the working classes would it 
show in the minds of those who make and 
execute the law 1 

What an immediate development of vil- 
lany and brutality would be brought out 
by such a law, avowedly made to protect 
men in cruelty ! Cannot men be cruel 
enough, without all the majesty of law 
being brought into operation to sanction it, 
and make it reputable ? 

And suppose it were said, in vindication 
of such a law, " 0, of course, no respect- 
able, humane man would ever think of taking 
advantage of it." Should we not think the 



old State of Massachusetts sunk very low, 
to have on her legal records direct assur- 
ances of protection to deeds which no decent 
man would ever do ? 

And, when this shocking permission is 
brought in review at the judgment-seat of 
Christ, and the awful Judge shall say to its 
makers, aiders, and abettors, Where is thy 
brother 7 — when all the souls that have 
called from under the altar, S ' How' long, 
Lord, dost thou not judge and avenge our 
blood," shall rise around tke judgment-scat 
as a great cloud of witnesses, and the judg- 
ment is set and the books are opened, — what 
answer will be made for such laws and de- 
cisions as these ? 

Will they tell the great Judge that it was 
necessary to preserve the slave system, — 
that it could not be preserved without them ? 

Will they dare look upon those eyes, 
which are as a flame of fire, with any such 
avowal ? 

Will He not answer, as with a voice of 
thunders, "Ye have killed the poor and 
needy, and ye have forgotten that the Lord 
was his helper ' ' ? 

The deadly sin of slavery is its denial of 
humanity to man. This has been the sin 
of oppression, in every age. To tread down, 
to vilify and crush, the image of God, in 
the person of the poor and lowly, has been 
the great sin of man since the creation of 
the world. Against this sin all the proph- 
ets of ancient times poured forth their 
thunders. A still stronger witness was 
borne against this sin when God, in Jesus 
Christ, took human nature, and made each 
human being a brother of the Lord. But 
the last and most sublime witness shall be 
borne when a Man shall judge the whole 
earth — a Man who shall acknowledge for 
His brother the meanest slave, equally with 
the proudest master. 

In most singular and affecting terms it is 
asserted in the Bible that the Father hath 
committed all judgment to the Son, because 
he is the Son of Man. That human 
nature, which, in the person of the poor 
slave, has been despised and rejected, scoffed 
and scorned, scourged and tortured, shall in 
that day be glorified ; and it shall appear 
the most fearful of sins to have made 
light of the sacredness of humanity, as these 
laws and institutions of slavery have done. 
The fact is, that the whole system of slave-, 
law, and the whole practice of the slave 
system, and the public sentiment that is 
formed by it, are alike based on the greatest 
of all heresies, a denial of equal human 



126 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



brotherhood. A whole race has been thrown 
out of the range of human existence, their 
immortality disregarded, their dignity as 
children of God scoffed at, their brotherhood 
with Christ treated as a fable, and all the 
law and public sentiment and practice with 
regard to them such as could be justified 
only on supposition that they were a race of 
inferior animals. 

It is because the negro is considered an 
inferior animal, and not worthy of any bet- 
ter treatment, that the system which relates 
to him and the treatment which falls to him 
are considered humane. 

Take any class of white men, however 
uneducated, and place them under the same 
system of laws, and make their civil con- 
dition in all respects like that of the negro, 
and would it not be considered the most 
outrageous cruelty ? 

Suppose the slave-law were enacted with 
regard to all the Irish in our country, and 
they were parcelled off as the property of 
any man who had money enough to buy 
them. Suppose their right to vote, their 
right to bring suit in any case, their right 
to bear testimony in courts of justice, their 
right to contract a legal marriage, their 
right to hold property or to make contracts 
of any sort, were all by one stroke of law 
blotted out. Furthermore, suppose it was 
forbidden to teach them to read and write, 
and that their children to all ages were 
"doomed to live without knowledge." Sup- 
pose that, in judicial proceedings, it were 
solemnly declared, with regard to them, that 
the mere beating of an Irishman, "apart 
from any circumstances of cruelty, or any 
attempt to kill," was no offence against the 
peace of the state. Suppose that it were de- 
clared that, for the better preservation of 
subjection among them, the law would pro- 
tect the master in any kind of punishment 
inflicted, even if it should appear to be 
malicious, cruel and excessive; and suppose 
that monsters like Souther, in availing them- 
selves of this permission, should occasionally 
torture Irishmen to death, but still this cir- 
cumstance should not be deemed of sufficient 
importance to call for any restriction on the 
part of the master. Suppose it should be 
coolly said, " yes, Irishmen are occasion- 
ally tortured to death, we know; but it is 
not by any means a general occurrence; in 
fact, no men of position in society would do 
it; and when cases of the kind do occur, they 
arc indignantly frowned upon." 

Supp ise it should be stated that the rea- 
son that the law restraining the power of 



the master cannot be made any more strin- 
gent is, that the general system cannot be 
maintained without allowing this extent of 
power to the master. 

Suppose that, having got all the Irishmen 
in the country down into this condition, they 
should maintain that such was the public 
sentiment of humanity with regard to them 
as abundantly to supply the want of all 
legal rights, and to make their condition, on 
the whole, happier than if they were free. 
Should we not say that a public sentiment 
which saw no cruelty in thus depriving a 
whole race of every right dear to manhood 
could see no cruelty in anything, and had 
proved itself wholly unfit to judge upon the 
subject? What man would not rather see 
his children in the grave than see them 
slaves'? What man, who, should he wake 
to-morrow morning in the condition of an 
American slave, would not wish himself in 
the grave? And yet all the defenders of 
slavery start from the point that this legal 
condition is not of itself a cruelty ! They 
would hold it the last excess of cruelty with 
regard to themselves, or any white man ; 
why do they call it no cruelty at all with 
regard to the negro? 

The writer in defence of slavery in Fra- 
ser J s Magazine justifies this depriving of 
a whole class of any legal rights, by urging 
that "the good there is in human nature 
will supply the deficiencies of human legis- 
lation." This remark is one most signifi- 
cant, powerful index of the state of public 
sentiment, produced even in a generous 
mind, by the slave system. This writer 
thinks the good there is in human nature 
will supply the absence of all legal rights 
to thousands and millions of human beings. 
He thinks it right to risk their bodies and 
their souls on the good there is in human 
nature ; yet this very man would not send 
a fifty-dollar bill through the post-office, in 
an unsealed letter, trusting to " the good 
there is in human nature." 

Would this man dare to place his children 
in the position of slaves, and trust them to 
" the good in human nature " ? 

Would he buy an estate from the most 
honorable man of his acquaintance, and have 
no legal record f the deed, trusting to ' ' the 
good in human nature"? And if "the 
good in human nature" will not suffice for 
him and his children, how will it suffice for 
his brother and his brother's children? Is 
his happiness of any more importance in 
God's sight than his brother's happiness, 
that his must be secured by legal bolts, and 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



127 



bonds, and bars, and his brother's left to 
"the good there is in human nature"? 
Never are we so impressed with the utter 
deadness of public sentiment to protect the 
slave, as when we see such opinions as these 
uttered by men of a naturally generous and 
noble character. 

The most striking and the most painful 
examples of the perversion of public senti- 
ment, with regard to the negro race, are 
often given in the writings of men of hu- 
manity, amiableness and piety. 

That devoted laborer for the slave, the 
Rev. Charles C. Jones, thus expresses his 
sense of the importance of one African 
soul: 

"Were it now revealed to us that the most ex- 
tensive 83'stem of instruction which we could 
devise, requiring a vast amount of labor and pro- 
tracted through ages, would result in the tender 
mercy of our God in the salvation of the soul of 
one poor African, we should feel warranted in 
cheerfully entering upon our work, with all its 
costs and sacrifices. 

What a noble, what a sublime spirit, is 
here breathed ! Does it not show a mind 
capable of the very highest impulses ? 

And yet, if we look over his whole writings, 
we shall see painfully how the moral sense 
of the finest mind may be perverted by con- 
stant familiarity with such a system. 

We find him constructing an appeal to 
masters to have their slaves orally instructed 
in religion. In many passages he speaks 
of oral instruction as confessedly an imper- 
fect species of instruction, very much in- 
ferior to that which results from personal 
reading and examination of the Word of 
God. He says, in one place, that in order 
to do much good it must be begun very 
early in life, and intimates that people in 
advanced years can acquire very little from 
it ; and yet he decidedly expresses his 
opinion that slavery is an institution with 
which no Christian has cause to interfere. 

The slaves, according to his own showing, 
are cut off from the best means for the sal- 
vation of their souls, and restricted to one 
of a very inferior nature. They are placed 
under restriction which makes their souls as 
dependent upon others for spiritual food as 
a man without hands is dependent upon 
others for bodily food. He recognizes the 
fact, which his own experience must show 
him, that the slave is at all times liable to 
pass into the hands of those who will not 
take the trouble thus to feed his soul ; nay, 
if we may judge from his urgent appeals, to 
masters, he perceives around him many who, 



having spiritually cut off the slave's hands, 
refuse to feed him. He sees that, by the 
operation of this law as a matter of fact, 
thousands are placed in situations where the 
perdition of the soul is almost certain, and 
yet he declares that he does not feel called 
upon at all to interfere with their civil con- 
dition ! 

But, if the soul of every poor African is 
of that inestimable worth which Mr. Jones 
believes, does it not follow that he ought to 
have the very best means for getting to 
heaven which it is possible to give him ? 
And is not he who can read the Bible for 
himself in a better condition than he who is 
dependent upon the reading of another? If 
it be said that such teaching cannot be 
afforded, because it makes them unsafe prop- 
erty, ought not a clergyman like Mr. Jones 
to meet this objection in his own expressive 
language : 

Were it now revealed to us that the most ex- 
tensive system of instruction which we could 
devise, requiring a vast amount of labor and pro- 
tracted through ages, would result in the tender 
mercy of our God in the salvation of the soul of 
one poor African, we should feel warranted in 
cheerfully entering upon our w;;rk, with all its 
costs and sacrifices. 

Should not a clergyman, like Mr. Jones, 
tell masters that they should risk the loss 
of all things seen and temporal, rather than 
incur the hazard of bringing eternal ruin 
on these souls ? All the arguments which 
Mr. Jones so eloquently used with masters, 
to persuade them to give their slaves oral 
instruction, would apply with double force 
to show their obligation to give the slave 
the power of reading the Bible for himself. 

Again, we come to hear Mr. Jones telling 
masters of the power they have over the 
souls of their servants, and we hear him 
say, 

We may, according to the power lodged in our 
hands, forbid religious meetings and religious in- 
struction on our own plantations ; we may forbid 
our servants going to church at all, or only to such 
churches as we may select for them. We may 
literally shut up the kingdom of heaven against 
men, and suffer not them that are entering to go 
in. 

And, when we hear Mr. Jones say all this, 
and then consider that he must see and 
know this awful power is often lodged in 
the hands of wholly irreligious men, in the 
hands of men of the most profligate charac- 
ter, we can account for his thinking such a 
system right only by attributing it to that 
blinding, deadening influence which the 



128 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



public sentiment of slavery exerts even over 
the best-constituted minds. 

Neither Mr. Jones nor any other Christ- 
ian minister would feel it right that the 
eternal happiness of their own children 
should be thus placed in the power of any 
man who should have money to pay for them. 
How, then, can they think it right that this 
power be given in the case of their African 
brother ? 

Does this not show that, even in case of 
the most humane and Christian people, who 
theoretically believe in the equality of all 
souls before God, a constant familiarity with 
slavery works a practical infidelity on this 
point ; and that they give their assent to 
laws which practically declare that the sal- 
vation of the servant's soul is of less con- 
sequence than the salvation of the property 
relation ? 

Let us not be thought invidious or un- 
charitable in saying, that where slavery ex- 
ists there are so many causes necessarily 
uniting to corrupt public sentiment with re- 
gard to the slave, that the best-constituted 
minds cannot trust themselves in it. In the 
northern and free states public sentiment 
has been, and is, to this day, fatally infected 
by the influence of a past and the proximity 
of a present system of slavery. Hence 
the injustice with which the negro in many 
of our states is treated. Hence, too, 
those apologies for slavery, and defences 
of it, which issue from Northern presses, 
and even Northern pulpits. If even at the 
North the remains of slavery can produce 
such baleful effects in corrupting public sen- 
timent, how much more must this be the 
case where this institution is in full force ! 

The whole American nation is, in some 
sense, under a paralysis of public sentiment 
on this subject. It was said by a heathen 
writer that the gods gave us a fearful power 
when they gave us the faculty of becoming 
accustomed to things. This power has proved 
a fearful one indeed in America. We have 
got used to things which might stir the dead 
in their graves. 

When but a small portion of the things 
daily done in America has been told in Eng- 
land, and France, and Italy, and Germany, 
there has been a perfect shriek and outcry 
of horror. America alone remains cool, and 
asks. "What is the matter?" 

Europe answers back, "Why, we have 
heard that men are sold like cattle in your 
country." 

" Of course they are," says America ; 
"hut what then? " 



" We have heard," says Europe, " that 
millions of men are forbidden to read and 
write in your country." 

" We know that," says America; " but 
what is this outcry about? " 

"We have heard," says Europe, "that 
Christian girls are sold to shame in your 
markets ! " 

" That. is n't quite as it should be," says 
America ; " but still what is this excitement 
about?" 

" We hear that three millions of your 
people can have no legal marriage ties," 
says Europe. 

" Certainly that is true," returns Amer- 
ica ; "but you made such an outcry, we 
thought you saw some great cruelty going 
on." 

" And you profess to be a free country ! " 
says indignant Europe. 

" Certainly we are the freest and most 
enlightened country in the world, — what 
are you talking about? " says America. 

" You send your missionaries to Christ- 
ianize us," says Turkey ; "and our religion 
has abolished this horrible system." 

" You ! you are all heathen over there, 
— what business have you to talk?" an- 
swers America. 

Many people seem really to have thought 
that nothing but horrible exaggerations of 
the system of slavery could have produced 
the sensation which has recently been felt in 
all modern Europe. They do not know- 
that the thing they have become accustomed 
to, and handled so freely in every discus- 
sion, seems to all other nations the sum and 
essence of villany. Modern Europe, open- 
ing her eyes and looking on the legal theory 
of the slave system, on the laws and inter- 
pretations of law which define it, says to 
America, in the language of the indignant 
Othello, If thou wilt justify a thing like 
this, 

" Never pray more ; abandon all remorse ; 
On Horror's head horrors accumulate ; 
Do deeds to make heaven weep, all earth amazed; 
For nothing canst thou to damnation add 
Greater than this." 

There is an awful state of familiarity with 
evil which the apostle calls being " dead in 
trespasses and sins," where truth has been 
resisted, and evil perscveringly defended, 
and the convictions of conscience stifled, and 
the voice of God's Holy Spirit bidden to 
depart. There is an awful paralysis of the 
moral sense, when deeds unholiest and 
crimes most fearful cease any longer to affect 
the nerve. That paralysis, always a fearful 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



129 



indication of the death and dissolution of 
nations, is a doubly dangerous disease in a 
republic, whose only power is in intelligence, 
justice and virtue. 



CHAPTER II. 

PUBLIC OPINION FORMED BY EDUCATION. 

Rev. Charles C. Jones, in his interest- 
ing work on the Religious Instruction of 
Negroes, has a passage which so peculiarly 
describes that influence of public opinion 
which we have been endeavoring to illustrate, 
that we shall copy it. 

Habits of feeling and prejudices in relation to 
any subject are wont to take their rise out of our 
education or circumstances. Every man knows 
their influence to be great in shaping opinions 
and conduct, and ofttimes how unwittingly they 
are formed ; that while we may be unconscious 
of their existence, they may grow with our growth 
and strengthen with our strength. Familiarity 
converts deformity into comeliness. Hence we 
are not alwaj's the best judges of our condition. 
Another may remark inconveniences, and, indeed, 
real evils, in it, of which we may be said to have 
been all our lives scarcely conscious. So, also, 
evils which, upon first acquaintance, revolted our 
whole nature, and appeared intolerable, custom 
almost makes us forget even to see. Men passing 
out of one state of society into another encounter 
a thousand things to which they feel that they 
can never be reconciled ; yet, shortly after, their 
sensibilities become dulled, — a change passes 
over them, they scarcely know how. They have 
accommodated themselves to their new circum- 
stances and relations, — they are Romans in Rome. 

Let us now inquire what are the educa- 
tional influences which bear upon the mind 
educated in constant familiarity with the 
slave system. 

Take any child of ingenuous mind and of 
generous heart, and educate him under the 
influences of slavery, and what are the things 
which go to form his character 7 An anec- 
dote which a lady related to the writer may 
be in point in this place. In giving an ac- 
count of some of the things which induced 
her to remove her family from under the 
influence of slavery, she related the follow- 
ing incident : Looking out of her nursery 
window one day, she saw her daughter, 
about three years of age, seated in her little 
carriage, with six or eight young negro 
children harnessed into it for horses. Two 
or three of the older slaves were standing 
around their little mistress, and one of them, 
putting a whip into her hand, said, " There, 
Misse, whip 'em well; make 'em go, — they're 
all your niggers." 



What a moral and religious lesson was 
this for that young soul ! The mother was 
a judicious woman, who never would herself 
have taught such a thing ; but the whole 
influence of slave society had burnt it into 
the soul of every negro, and through them it 
was communicated to the child. 

As soon as a child is old enough to read the 
newspapers, he sees in every column such 
notices as the following from a late Rich- 
mond Whig, and other papers. 

LARGE SALE OF XEGROES, HORSES, 
MILES, CATTLE, &c. 

The subscriber, under a decree of the Circuit 
Superior Court for Fluvanna County, will proceed 
to sell, by public auction, at the late residence of 
William Gait, deceased, on Tuesday, the 30th 
day of November, and Wednesday, the 1st day 
of December next, beginning at 11 o'clock, the 
negroes, stock, &c, of all kinds, belonging to the 
estate, consisting of 175 negroes, amongst whom are 
some Carpenters and Blacksmiths, — 10 horses, 
33 mules, 100 head of cattle, 100 sheep, 200 hogs, 
1500 barrels corn, oats, fodder, &c, the planta- 
tion and shop tools of all kinds. 

The Negroes will be sold for cash ; the other 
property on a credit of nine months, the purchaser 
giving bond, with approved security. 

James Galt, Administrator of 

Oct. 19. William Gait, deceased 

From the Nashville Gazette, Nov. 23, 
1852: 

GREAT SALE OP NEGROES, MULES, CAT 
TLE, &.C. 

On Tuesday, the 21st day of December next, at 
the Plantation of the late N. A. McNairy, on the 
Franklin Turnpike, on account of Mrs. C. B. 
McNairy, Executrix, we will offer at Public Sale 

FIFTY VALUABLE NEGROES. 

These Negroes are good Plantation Negroes, and 
will be sold in families. Those wishing to pur- 
chase will do well to see them before the day of 
sale. 

Also, TEN FINE WORK MlTLES, TWO JACKS AND 

one Jennet, Milch Cows and Calves, Cattle, Stock 
Hogs, 1200 barrels Corn, Oats, Hay, Fodder, &c. 
Two Wagons, One Cart, Farming Utensils, &c. 

From the Newberry Sentinel : 

FOR SALE. 

The subscriber will sell at Auction, on the I5th 
of this month, at the Plantation on which he 
resides, distant eleven miles from the Town of 
Newberry, and near the Laurens Railroad,. 

22 Young and Likely Negroes ; 

comprising able-bodied field-hands, good' oooks, 
house-servants, and an excellent bJaoksmith ; — 
about 1500 bushels of corn, a quantity of fodder, 
hogs, mules, sheep, neat cattle, household and 
kitchen furniture, and other property. — Terms 
made public on day of Sale. 

M. C. Gary. 

Dec. 1. 

JSP" Laurensville Herald copy till day of sale. 



130 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



From the South Carolinian, Oct. 21, 

1852: 

ESTATE SALE OF VALUABLE PROP- 
ERTY. 

The undersigned, as Administrator of the Estate 
of Col. T. Randell, deceased, will sell, on Mon- 
day, the 20th December next, all the personal 
property belonging to said estate, consisting of 
56 Negroes, Stock, Corn, Fodder, &c. &c. The 
sale will take place at the residence of the de- 
ceased, on Sandy River, 10 miles West of Ches- 
terville. 

Terms of Sale : The negroes on a credit of 12 
months, with interest from day of sale, and two 
good sureties. The other property will be sold 
for cash. Samuel J. Randell, 

Sept. 2. 

See, also, New Orleans Bee, Oct. 28. 
After advertising the landed estate of Mad- 
eline Lanoux, deceased, comes the following 
enumeration of chattels : 

Twelve slaves, men and women ; a small, quite 
new schooner ; a ferrying flat-lx>at ; some cows, 
calves, heifers and sheep ; a lot of household fur- 
niture ; the contents of a store, consisting of hard- 
ware, crockery ware, groceries, dry goods, etc. 

Now, suppose all parents to be as pious 
and benevolent as Mr. Jones, — a thing not 
at all to be hoped for, as things are; — and 
suppose them to try their very best to 
impress on the child a conviction that all 
souls are of equal value in the sight of God ; 
that the negro soul is as truly beloved of 
Christ, and ransomed with his blood, as the 
master's ; and is there any such thing as 
making him believe or realize it 1 Will he 
believe that that which he sees, every week, 
advertised with hogs, and horses, and fod- 
der, and cotton-seed, and refuse furniture, 
— bedsteads, tables and chairs, — is indeed 
so divine a thing? We will suppose that 
the little child knows some pious slave ; 
that he sees him at the communion-table, 
partaking, in a far-off, solitary manner, of 
the -sacramental bread and wine. He sees 
his pious father and mother recognize the 
slave as a Christian brother ; they tell him 
that he is an " heir of God, a joint heir with 
Jesus Christ;" and the next week he sees 
him advertised in the paper, in company with 
a lot of hogs, stock and fodder. Can the 
child possibly believe in what his Christian 
parents have told him, when he sees this? 
We have spoken now of only the common 
advertisements of the paper: but suppose 
the child to live in some districts of the 
country, and advertisements of a still more 
degrading character meet his eye. In the 
State of Alabama, a newspaper devoted to 
politics, literature and EDUCATION, lias a 



standing weekly advertisement of which this 
is a copy : 

XOTICE. 

The undersigned having an excel- ajs-rO 
lent pack of Hounds, for trailing ^^a^"**^ 

and catching runaway slaves, informs the public 

that his prices in future will be as follows for 

such services : 

For each day employed in hunting or 

trailing, ------ $2.59 

For catching each slave, - 10.00 

For going over ten miles, and catching 

slaves, 20.00 

If sent for, the above prices will be exacted in 

cash. The subscriber resides one mile and a half 

south of Dadeville, Ala. -r, -r, 

' B. Black. 

Dadeville, Sept. 1, 1852. 1-tf 

The reader will see, by the printer's sign 
at the bottom, that it is a season advertise- 
ment, and, therefore, would meet the eye 
of the child week after week. The paper 
from which we have cut this contains 
among its extracts passages from Dickens' 
Household Words, from Professor Felton's 
article in the Christian Examiner on the 
relation of the sexes, and a most beautiful 
and chivalrous appeal from the eloquent 
senator Soule on the legal rights of women. 
Let us now ask, since this paper is devoted 
to education, what sort of an educational 
influence such advertisements have. And, 
of course, such an establishment is not kept 
up without patronage. Where there are 
negro-hunters advertising in a paper, there 
are also negro-hunts, and there are dogs 
being trained to hunt; and all this process 
goes on before the eyes of children ; and 
what sort of an education is it 1 

The writer has received an account of the 
way in which dogs are trained for this busi- 
ness. The information has been communi- 
cated to the gentleman who writes it by a 
negro man, who, having been always accus- 
tomed to see it done, described it with as little 
sense of there being anything out of the way 
in it as if the dogs had been trained to catch 
raccoons. It came to the writer in a recent 
letter from the South. 

The way to train 'em (says tho man) is to 
take these yep pups, — any kind o' pups will do, — 
fox-hounds, bull-dogs, most any; — but take the 
pups, and keep 'em shut up, and don't let 'em never 
see a nigger till they get hig enough to be lamed. 
When the pups gits old enough to be set on to 
things, then make 'em run after a nigger; and 
when they cotches him, ^ive 'em meat. Tell the 
nigger to run as hard as he can, and git up in a 
tree, so as to lam the dogs to tree 'em ; then take 
the shoe of a nigger, and lam 'em to find the nig- 
ger it belongs to ; then a rag of his clothes ; and 
so on. Allurs be earful to tree the nigger, and 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 



131 



teach the dog to wait and bark under the tree 
till you come up and give him his meat. 

See also the following advertisement from 
the Ouachita Register, a newspaper dated 
" Monroe, La., Tuesday evening, June 1, 
1852." 

NEGRO DOGS. 

The undersigned would respectfully inform the 
citizens of Ouachita and adjacent parishes, that 
he has located about 2.^ miles east of John 
White's, on the road leading from Monroe to Bast- 
rop, and that he has a fine pack of Dogs for catch- 
ing negroes. Persons wishing; negroes caught 
will do well to give him a call. He can always 
be found at his stand when not engaged in hunt- 
ing, and even then information of his whereabouts 
can always be had of some one on the premises. 

Terms. — Five dollars per day and found, when 
there is no track pointed out. When the track 
is shown, twenty-five dollars will be charged for 
catching the negro. 



Monroe, Feb. 17, 1852. 



M. C. Goff. 
15-3m 



Now, do not all the scenes likely to be 
enacted under this head form a fine educa- 
tion for the children of a Christian nation ? 
and can we wonder if children so formed see 
no cruelty in slavery? Can children real- 
ize that creatures who are thus hunted are 
the children of one heavenly Father with 
themselves ? 

But suppose the boy grows up to be a 
man, and attends the courts of justice, and 
hears intelligent, learned men declaring 
from the bench that " the mere beating of a 
slave, unaccompanied by any circumstances 
of cruelty, or an attempt to kill, is no breach 
of the peace of the state." Suppose he hears 
it decided in the same place that no insult or 
outrage upon any slave is considered worthy 
of legal redress, unless it impairs his prop- 
erty value. Suppose he hears, as he would 
in Virginia, that it is the policy of the law 
to protect the master even in inflicting cruel, 
malicious and excessive punishment upon 
the slave. Suppose a slave is murdered, 
and he hears the lawyers arguing that it 
cannot be considered a murder, because 
the slave, in law, is not considered a human 
being; and then suppose the case is ap- 
pealed to a superior court, and he hears 
the judge expending his forces on a long 
and elocpuent dissertation to prove that the 
slave is a human being ; at least, that he is 
as much so as a lunatic, an idiot, or an 
unborn child, and that, therefore, he can be 
murdered. (See Judge Clark's speech, on 
p. 75 .) Suppose he sees that all the admin- 
istration of law with regard to the slave 
proceeds on. the idea that he is absolutely 



nothing more than a bale of merchandise. 
Suppose he hears such language as this, 
which occurs in the reasonings of the Braze- 
alle case, and which is a fair sample of the 
manner in which such subjects are ordina- 
rily discussed. "The slave has no more 
political capacity, no more right to purchase, 
hold or transfer property, than the mule in 
his plough; he is in himself but a mere 
chattel, — the subject of absolute owner- 
ship." Suppose he sees on the statute- 
book such sentences as these, from the civil 
code of Louisiana : 

Art. 2500. The latent defects of slaves and ani- 
mals are divided into two classes, — vices of body 
and vices of character. 

Art. 2501. The vices of body are distinguished 
into absolute and relative. 

Art. 2502. The absolute vices of slaves are lep- 
rosy, madness and epilepsy. 

Art. 2503. The absolute vices of horses and 1 
mules are short wind, glanders, and founder. 

The influence of this language is made all 
the stronger on the young mind from the 
fact that it is not the language of contempt, 
or of passion, but of calm, matter-of-fact, 
legal statement. 

What effect must be produced on the mind 
of the young man when he comes to see 
that, however atrocious and however well- 
proved be the murder of a slave, the mur- 
derer uniformly escapes ; and that, though 
the cases where the slave has fallen a vic- 
tim to passions of the white are so multi- 
plied, yet the fact of an execution for such a 
crime is yet almost unknown in the country? 
Does not all this tend to produce exactly 
that estimate of the value of negro life and 
happiness which Frederic Douglass says was 
expressed by a common proverb among the 
white boys where he was brought up : " It ; s 
worth sixpence to kill a nigger, and sixpence 
more to bury him " ? 

We see the public sentiment which has 
been formed by this kind of education ex- 
hibited by the following paragraph from the 
Cambridge Democrat, Md., Oct. 27, 1852. 
That paper quotes the following firm the 
Wooduille Republican, of Mississippi. It 
seems a Mr. Joshua Johns had killed a 
slave, and had been sentenced therefor to 
the penitentiary for two years The Re- 
publican thus laments his hard lot : 

STATE V, JOSHUA JOHNS. 

This cause resulted in the conviction of Johns, 
and his sentence to the penitentiary for two years. 
Although every member of the jury, together with 
the bar, and the public generally, signed a peti- 
tion to the governor for young Johns' pardon, yet 



132 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



there was no fault to find with the verdict of the 
jury. The extreme youth of Johns, and the cir- 
cumstances in which the killing occurred, enlisted 
universal sympathy in his favor. There is no 
doubt that the negro had provoked him to the 
deed by the use of insolent language ; but how 
often must it be told that words are no justifica- 
tion for blows? There are many persons — and 
we regret to say it — ivho think they have the same 
right to shoot a negro, if he insults them, or even 
runs from them, that they have to shoot down a dog ; 
but there are laws for the protection of the slave 
as well as the master, and the sooner the error 
above alluded to is removed, the better will it be for 
both parties. 

The unfortunate youth who has now entailed 
upon himself the penalty of the law, we doubt not, 
had no idea that there existed such penalty ; and 
even if he was aware of the fact, the repeated in- 
sults and taunts of the negro go far to mitigate 
the crime. Johns Avas defended by I. D. Gildart, 
Esq., who probably did all that could have been 
effected in his defence. 

The Democrat adds : 

We learn from Mr. Curry, deputy sheriff, of 
Wilkinson County, that Johns has been pardoned 
by the governor. We are gratified to hear it. 

This error above alluded to, of thinking 
it is as innocent to shoot down a negro as a 
dog. is one, we fairly admit, for which young 
Johns ought not to be very severely blamed. 
He has been educated in a system of things 
of which this opinion is the inevitable result; 
and he, individually, is far less guilty for it, 
than are those men Avho support the sys- 
tem of laws, and keep up the educational 
influences, which lead young Southern men 
directly to this conclusion. Johns may be, 
fur aught we know, as generous-hearted and 
as just naturally as any young man living; 
but the horrible system under which he has 
been educated has rendered him incapable 
of distinguishing what either generosity or 
justice is, as applied to the negro. 

The public sentiment of the slave states 
is the sentiment of men who have been thus 
educated, and in all that concerns the negro 
it is utterly blunted and paralyzed. What 
would seem to them injustice and horrible 
Avrong in the case of Avhite persons, is the 
coolest matter of course in relation to slaves. 

As this educational influence descends 
from generation to generation, the moral 
sense becomes more ami more blunted, and 
the poAver of discriminating right from 
wrung, in what relates to the subject race, 
more and more enfeebled. 

Thus, if Ave read the Avritings of distin- 
guished men avIio Avcrc slave-holders about 
the time of our American Revolution, what 
clear vieAvs do aa'c find expressed of the in- 
justice of slavery, what strong language of 



reprobation do we find applied to it ! Nothing 
more forcible could possibly be said in rela- 
tion to its evils than by quoting the language 
of such men as Washington, Jefferson, and 
Patrick Henry. In those days there were 
no men of that high class of mind who 
thought of such a thing as defending slavery 
on principle ; now there are an abundance of 
the most distinguished men, North and 
South, statesmen, civilians, men of letters, 
even clergymen, who in various degrees 
palliate it, apologize for or openly defend 
it. And what is the cause of this, except 
that educational influences have corrupted 
public sentiment, and deprived them of the 
power of just judgment? The public 
opinion even of free America, with regard 
to slave?y, is behind that of all other 
civilized ?iations. 

When the holders of slaves assert that 
they are, as a general thing, humanely 
treated, what do they mean ? Not that they 
would consider such treatment humane if 
given to themselves and their children, — do, 
indeed ! — but it is humane for slaves. 

They do, in effect, place the negro below 
the range of humanity, and on a level with 
brutes, and then graduate all their ideas of 
humanity accordingly. 

They would not needlessly kick or abuse 
a dog or a negro. They may pet a dog, 
and they often do a negro. Men have been 
found Avho fancied having their horses ele- 
gantly lodged in marble stables, and to eat 
out of sculptured mangers, but they thought 
them horses still : and, with all the indul- 
gences with which good-natured masters 
sometimes surround the slave, he is to them 
but a negro still, and not a man. 

In Avhat has been said in this chapter, and 
in Avhat appears incidentally in all the facts 
cited throughout this volume, there is abun- 
dant proof that. notAvithstanding there be fre- 
quent and most noble instances of generosity 
towards the negro, and although the senti- 
ment of honorable men and the voice of 
Christian charity does everyAvhere protest 
against what it feels to be inhumanity, yet 
the popular sentiment engendered by the 
system must necessarily fall deplorably 
short of giving anything like sufficient pro- 
tection to the rights of the slave. It will 
appear in the succeeding chapters, as it must 
already have appeared to reflecting minds, 
that the Avholc course of educational influence 
upon the mind of the slave-master is such as 
to deaden his mind to those appeals which 
come from the negro as a fellow-man and a 
brother. 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



133 



CHAPTER III. 

SEPARATION OF FAMILIES- 

"What must the difference be," said Dr. Worthington, 
with startling energy, " between Isabel and her servants ! 
To hrr it is loss of position, fortune, the fair hopes of life, 
perhaps even health; for she must inevitably break down 
under the unaccustomed labor and privations she will have 
to undergo. But to them it is merely a change of masters " .' 

" Yes, for the neighbors won't allow any of the families 
to be separated." 

" Of course not. We read of such things in novels some- 
times. But I have yet to see it in real life, except in 
rare cases, or where the slave has been guilty of some mis- 
demeanor, or crime, for which, in the North, he would 
have been imprisoned, perhaps for life." — Cabin and Par- 
lor, b}' J. Thornton Randolph, p. 39. 

********* 
" But they 're going to sell us all to Georgia, I say. 
How are vre to escape that 1 " 

" Spee dare some mistake in dat," replied Uncle Peter, 
stoutly. " I nebber knew of sich a ting in dese parts, 
*cept where some niggar 'd been berry bad." — Ibid. 

By such graphic touches as the above 
does Mr. Thornton Randolph represent to 
us the patriarchal stability and security of 
the slave population in the Old Dominion. 
Such a thin^r, as a slave being sold out of 
the state has never been heard of by Dr. 
Worthington, except in rare cases for some 
crime ; and old Uncle Peter never heard of 
such a thing in his life. 

Are these representations true ? 

The worst abuse of the system of slavery 
is its outrage upon the family : and, as the 
writer views the subject, it is one which is 
more notorious and undeniable than any 
other. 

Yet it is upon this point that the most 
stringent and earnest denial has been made 
to the representations of "Uncle Tom's 
Cabin." either indirectly, as by the romance- 
writer above, or more directly in the asser- 
tions of newspapers, both at the North and 
at the South. When made at the North, they 
indicate, to say the least, very great igno- 
rance of the subject : when made at the 
South, they certainly do very great injustice 
to the general character of the Southerner 
for truth and honesty. All sections of 
country have faults peculiar to themselves. 
The fault of the South, as a general thing, 
has not been cowardly evasion and deception. 
It was with utter surprise that the author 
read the following sentences in an article in 
Frasers Magazine, professing to come 
from a South Carolinian. 

Mrs. Stowe's favorite ill) istration of the master's 
power to the injury of the slave is the separation 
of families. We are told of infants of ten months 
old being sold from the arms of their mothers, and 
of men whose habit it is to raise children to sell 
away from their mother as soon as they are. old 
enough to be separated. Were our views of this 



feature of slavery derived from Mrs. Stowe's book, 
we should regard the families of slaves as utterly 
unsettled and vagrant. 

And again : 

We feel confident that, if statistics could be 
had to throw light upon this subject, we should 
find that there is less separation of families among 
the negroes than occurs with almost any other 
class of persons. 

As the author of the article, however, is 
evidently a man of honor, and expresses 
many most noble and praiseworthy senti- 
ments, it cannot be supposed that these 
statements were put forth with any view to 
misrepresent or to deceive. The3 r are only 
to be regarded as evidences of the facility 
'with which a sanguine mind often overlooks 
the most glaring facts that make against a 
favorite idea or theory, or which are un- 
favorable in their bearings on one's own 
country or family. Thus the citizens of 
some place notoriously unhealthy will come 
to believe, and assert, with the utmost sin- 
cerity, that there is actually less sickness 
in their town than any other of its size 
in the known world. Thus parents often 
think their children perfectly immaculate 
in just those particulars in which others 
see them to be most faulty. This solution 
of the phenomena is a natural and amiable 
one, and enables us to retain our respect for 
our Southern brethren. 

There is another circumstance, also, to be 
taken into account, in reading such asser- 
tions as these. It is evident, from the 
pamphlet in question, that the writer is one 
of the few who regard the possession of ab- 
solute irresponsible power as the highest of 
motives to moderation and temperance in its 
use. Such men are commonly associated 
in friendship and family connection with 
others of similar views, and are very apt to 
fall into the error of judging others by 
themselves, and thinking that a thing may 
do for all the world because it operates well 
in their immediate circle. Also it cannot 
but be a fact that the various circumstances 
which from infancy conspire to degrade and 
depress the negro in the eyes of a Southern- 
born man, — the constant habit of speaking 
of them, and hearing them spoken of, and 
seeing them advertised, as mere articles of 
property, often in connection with horses, 
mules, fodder, swine, &c, as they are almost 
daily in every Southern paper, — must tend, 
even in the best-constituted minds, to pro- 
duce a certain obtuseness with regard to the 
interests, sufferings and affections, of such 
as do not particularly belong to himself, 



134 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



which will pecularly unfit him for estimating 
their condition. The author has often been 
singularly struck with this fact, in the letters 
of Southern friends ; in which, upon one 
page, they will make some assertion regard- 
ing the condition of Southern negroes, and 
then go on, and in other connections state 
facts which apparently contradict them all. 
We can all be aware how this familiarity 
would operate with ourselves. Were we 
called upon to state how often our neighbors' 
cows were separated from their calves, or 
how often their household furniture and 
other effects are scattered and dispersed by 
executor's sales, we should be inclined to say 
that it was not a misfortune of very common 
occurrence. 

But let us open two South Carolina papers, 
published in the very state where this gen- 
tleman is residing, and read the advertise- 
ments for one week. The author has 
slightly abridged them. 

COMMISSIONER'S SALE OF 12 LIKELY 
NEGROES. 

Fairfield District. 

R. W. Murray and wife and' 

others 

v. 

William "Wright and wife 

and others. 

In pursuance of an Order of the Court of 
Equity made in the above case at July Term, 
1852, I will sell at public outcry, to the highest 
bidder, before the Court House in Winnsboro, on 
the first Monday in January next, 

12 VERY LIKELY NEGROES, 

belonging to the estate of Micajah Mobley, de- 
ceased, late of Fairfield District. 

These Negroes consist chiefly of young boys 
and girls, and are said to be very likely. 

Terms of Sale, &c. 

W. R. Robertson, 

C.E. F.D. 

Commissioner's Office, > 

Winnsboro, Nov. 30,1852. f 

Dec. 2 42 x4. 



>• In Equity. 



ADMINISTRATOR'S SALE. 

Will bo sold at public joutcry, to the highest 
bidder, mi Tuesday, the 21st uay of December 
next, at the late residence of Mrs. M. P. Rabb, 
deceased, all of the personal estate of said de- 
ceased, consisting in part of about 

2,00(1 Bushels of Corn. 

25,000 pounds of Fodder. 

Wheat — Cotton Seed. 

Horses, Mules, Cattle, Hogs, Sheep. 

There will, in all probability, be sold at the 
same time and place several likely Young Negroes. 

The Terms of Sale will be — nil Minis under 
Twenty-five Dollars, Cash. All sums of Twenty- 
five Dollars and over, twelve months' credit, with 
interest from day of Sale, secured bj note and 
two approved sureties. William S. Kami, 

Administrator. 

Nov. 11. 39 x2 



COMMISSIONER'S SALE OF LAND AND 
NEGROES. 

Fairfield District. 

James E. Caldwell, 

Admr., with the Will 

annexed, of Jacob Gibson, 

deceased, f In Equity, 

v. 
Jason D. Gibson 
and others. 

In pursuance of the order of aale made in the 
above case, I will sell at public outcry, to the 
highest bidder, before the Court House in Winns-' 
boro, on the first Monday in January next, and 
the day following, the following real and personal 
estate of Jacob Gibson, deceased, late of Fair- 
field District, to wit : 

The Plantation on which the testator lived at 
the time of his death, containing 661 Acres, more 
or less, lying on the waters of Wateree Creek, and 
bounded by lands of Samuel Johnston, Theodore 
S. DuBose, Edward P. Mobley, and B. R. Cockrell. 
This plantation will be sold in two separate tracts, 
plats of which will be exhibited on the day of 
sale : 

46 PRIME LIKELY NEGROES, 

consisting of Wagoners, Blacksmiths, Cools, House 
Servants, dec. W. R. Robertson. 

C.E. F.D. 

Commissioner's Office, ) 

Winnsboro, 29th Nov. 1852. J 



ESTATE SALE.— FIFTY PRIME NEGROES. 
BY J. & L. T. LEVIN. 

On the first Monday in January next I will sell, 
before the Court House in Columbia, 50 of as 
Likely Negroes as have ever been exposed to public 
sale, belonging to the estate of A. P. Vinson, de- 
ceased. The Negroes have been well cared for, 
and well managed in every respect. Persons wish- 
ing to purchase will not, it is confidently believed, 
have a better opportunity to supply themselves. 

J. II . Adams, 
Executor. 

Nov. 18 40 x3 



ADMINISTRATOR'S SALE. 

Will be sold on the 15th December next, at the 
late residence of Samuel Moore, deceased, in York 
District, all the personal property of said deceased, 
consisting of : 

35 LIKELY NEGROES, 

a quantity of Cotton and Corn, Horses and Mules, 
Farming Tools, Household and Kitchen Furniture, 
with many other articles. 



Nov. 18 



Samuel E. Moore, 
Administrator. 
40 x4t. 



ADMINISTRATOR'S SALE. 

Will be sold at public outcry, to the highest 
bidder, on Tuesday, the 14th day of December 
next, at the late residence of Robert W. Durham, 
deceased, in Fairfield District, all of the personal 
estate of said deceased : consisting in part as fol- 
lows : 

50 PRIME LIKELY NEGROES. 

About 3,000 Bushels of Corn. 
A large quantity of Fodder. 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



135 



Wheat, Oats, Cow Peas, Rye, Cotton Seed, 
Horses, Mules, Cattle, Hogs, Sheep. 

C. H. Durham, 
Nov. 23. Administrator. 

SHERIFF'S SALE. 

By virtue of sundry executions to me directed, 
I will sell at Fairfield Court House, on the first 
Monday, and the day following, in December next, 
within the legal hours of sale, to the highest bid- 
der, for cash, the following property. Purchasers 
to pay for titles : 

2 Negroes, levied upon as the property of Allen 
R. Crankfield, at the suit of Alexander Brodie, et al. 

2 Horses and 1 Jennet, levied upon as the prop- 
erty of Allen R. Crankfield, at the suit of Alexan- 
der Brodie. 

2 Mules, levied upon as the property of Allen 
R. Crankfield, at the suit of Temperance E. Miller 
and J. W. Miller. 

1 pair of Cart Wheels, levied upon as the prop- 
erty of Allen R. Crankfield, at the suit of Tem- 
perance E. Miller and J. W. Miller. 

1 Chest of Drawers, levied upon as the property 
of Allen R. Crankfield, at the suit of Temperance 
E. Miller and J. W. Miller. 

1 Bedstead, levied upon as the property of Allen 
R. Crankfield, at the suit of Temperance E. Miller 
and J. W. Miller. 

1 Negro, levied upon as the property of R. J. 
Gladney, at the suit of James Camak. 

1 Negro, levied upon as the property of Geo. 
McCormick, at the suit of W. M. Phifer. 

1 Riding Saddle, to be sold under an assignment 
of G. W. Boulware to J. B. Mickle, in the case of 
Geo. Murphy, Jr., v. G. W. Boulware. 

R. E. Ellison, 
Sheriff's Office, > S. F. D. 

Nov. 19 1852. 5 

Nov. 20 37 fxtf 



COMMISSIONER'S SALE. 



John A. Crumpton, 
and others, 



1 



In Equity. 



Zachariah C. Crumpton. 

In pursuance of the Decretal order made in this 
case, I will sell at public outcry to the highest 
bidder, before the Court House door in Winnsboro, 
on the first Monday in December next, three 
separate tracts or parcels of land, belonging to 
the estate of Zachariah Crumpton, deceased. 

I will also sell, at the same time and place, five 
or slx likely Young Negroes, sold as the property 
of the said Zachariah Crumpton, deceased, by 
virtue of the authority aforesaid. 

The Terms of sale are as follows, &c. &c. 

W. R. ROBETSON, 

Commissioner's Office, > C. E. F. D. 

Winnsboro, Nov. 8, 1852. J 

Nov 11 30 x3 



ESTATE SALE OF VALUABLE PROPERTY. 

The undersigned, as Administrator of the Estate 
of Col. T. Randell, deceased, will sell, on Monday 
the 20th December next, all the personal property 
belonging to said estate, consisting of 
56 NEGROES, 

STOCK, CORN, FODDER, ETC. ETC. 

Terms of sale, &c. &c. 

Samuel J. Randell. 
Sep. 2 29 xlG 



The Tri-weekly South Carolinian , pub- 
lished at Columbia, S. C, has this motto : 

" Be just and fear not ; let all the ends thou 
aim'st at be thy Country's, thy God's, and 
Truth's." 

In the number dated December 23d, 
1852, is found a " Reply of the Women of 
Virginia to the Women of England." con- 
taming this sentiment : 

Believe us, we deeply, prayerfully, study God's 
holy word; we are fully persuaded that our in- 
stitutions are in accordance with it. 

After which, in other columns, come the 
ten advertisements following : 

SHERIFF'S SALES FOR JANUARY 2, 1S53. 

By virtue of sundry writs of fieri facias, to me 
directed, will be sold before the Court House in 
Columbia, within the legal hours, on the first 
Monday and Tuesday in January next, 

Seventy-four acres of Land, more or less, in 
Richland District, bounded on the north and east 
by Lorick's, and on the south and west by Thomas 
Trapp. 

Also, Te/i Head of Cattle, Twenty-five Head of 
Hogs, and Two Hundred Bushels of Corn, levied 
on as the property of M. A. Wilson, at the suit 
of Samuel Gardner v. M. A. Wilson. 

Seven Negroes, named Grace, Frances, Edmund, 
Charlotte, Emuline, Thomas and Charles, levied 
on as the property of Bartholomew Turnipseed, 
at the suit of A. F. Dubard, J. S. Lever, Bank of 
the State and others, v. B. Turnipseed. 

450 acres of Land, more or less, in Richland 
District, bounded on the north, &c. &c. 



LARGE SALE OF REAL AND PERSONAL 
PROPERTY.— ESTATE SALE. 

On Monday, the (7th) seventh day of February 
next, I will sell at Auction, without reserve, at the 
Plantation, near Linden, all the Horses, Mules, 
Wagons, Farming Utensils, Corn, Fodder, &c. 

And on the following Monday (14th), the four- 
teenth day of February next, at the Court House, 
at Linden, in Marengo County, Alabama, I will 
sell at public auction, without reserve, to the 
highest bidder, 

110 PRIME AND LIKELY NEGROES, 

belonging to the Estate of the late John Robinson, 
of South Carolina. 

Among the Negroes are four valuable Carpen- 
ters, and a very superior Blacksmith. 



NEGROES FOR SALE. 

By permission of Peter Wylie, Esq., Ordinary 
for Chester District, I will sell, at public auction, 
before the Court House, in Chesterville, on the 
first Monday in February next, 

FORTY LIKELY NEGROES, 

belonging to the Estate of F. W. Davie. 

"W. D. DeSaussure, Executor. 
Dec. 23. 56 ftds. 



ESTATE SALE OF FURNITURE, Ate, BY J. 
& L. T. LEVIN. 

"Will be sold, at our store, on Thursday, the Gth 
day of January next, all the Household and Kitch 



136 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 



en Furniture, belonging to the Estate of B. L. 
McLaughlin, deceased, consisting in part of 

Hair Seat Chairs, Sofas and Rockers. Piano, 
Mahogany Dining, Tea, and Card Tables ; Carpets, 
Rugs, Andirons, Fenders, Shovel and Tongs, Man- 
tel Ornaments, Clocks, Side Board, Bureaus, Ma- 
hogany Bedsteads, Feather Beds and Mattresses, 
Wash Stands, Curtains, fine Cordial Stand, Glass- 
ware, Crockery, and a great variety of articles for 
family use. 

Terms cash. 

ALSO, 

A Negro Man, named Leonard, belonging to 
same. 

Terms, &c. 

ALSO, 

At same time, a quantity of New Brick, belong- 
ing to Estateof A. S. Johnstone, deceased. 
Dec. 21. 53 Jtds. 



GREAT SALE OP XEGROES AXD THE SA- 
LUDA FACTORY, BY J. &: L. T. LEVIN. 

On Thursday, December 30, at 11 o'clock, will 
be sold at the Court House in Columbia, 

ONE HUNDRED VALUABLE NEGROES. 

It is seldom such an opportunity occurs as now 
offers. Among them are only four beyond 45 
years old, and none above 50. There are twenty- 
five prime young men, between sixteen and thirty ; 
forty of the most likely young women, and as fine 
a set of children as can be shown! ! 

Terms, &c. Dec. 18, '52. 



XEGROES AT ATCTIOX. — BY J. & L. T. 

LEVIX. 

Will be sold, on Monday, the 3d January next, 
at the Court House, at 10 o'clock, 

22 likely negroes, the larger number of which 
are young and desirable. Among them are Field 
Hands, Hostlers and Carnage Drivers, House Ser- 
vants, &c, and of the following ages : Robinson 
40, Elsey 34, Yanaky 13, Sylla 11, Anikee 8, Rob- 
inson 6, Candy 3, Infant 0, Thomas 35, Die 38, 
Amey 18, Eldridge 13, Charles G, Sarah GO, Baket 
50, Mary 18, Betty 10, Guy 12, Tilla 9, Lydia 21, 
Rachel 4, Scipio 2. 

The above Negroes are sold for the purpose of 
making some other investment of the proceeds ; 
the sale will, therefore, be positive. 

Terms. — A credit of one, two, and throe years, 
Cur notes payable at either of the Banks, with two 
or more approved endorsers, with interest from 
date. Purchasers to pay for papers. Dec 8 43 

flE^" Black River Watchman will copy the above, 
and forward bill to the auctioneers for payment. 

Poor little Scip ! 



LIKELY AND VALUABLE GIRL, AT PRI- 
VATE SALE. 

A likely gikl, about seventeen years old 
(raised in the up-country), a good Nurse and 
House Servant, can wash and iron, and do plain 
cooking, and is _ warranted sound and healthy. 
She may be seen at our office, where she will re- 
main until sold. Alien & Phillips, 

Dec. 15, '4'J. Auctioneers & ( !om. Agents. 



PLANTATION AND NEGROES POR SALE. 

The subscriber, having located in Columbia, 

offers for sale his Plantation in St. Matthew's 



Parish, six miles from the Railroad, containing 
1,500 acres, now in a high state of cultivation, 
with Dwelling House and all necessary Out-build- 
ings. ; 

ALSO, 

50 Likely Negroes, with provisions, &c. 

The terms will be accommodating. Persons 
desirous to purchase can call upon the subscriber 
in Columbia, or on his son at the Plantation. 

Dec. G 41. T. J. Goodwyn. 



FOR SALE. 

A likely negro boy, about twenty-one years 
old, a good wagoner and field hand. Apply at 
this office. Dec. 20 52. 

Now, it is scarcely possible that a person 
who has been accustomed to see such adver- 
tisements from boyhood, and to pass them 
over with as much indifference as we pass 
over advertisements of sofas and chairs for 
sale, could possibly receive the shock from 
them which one wholly unaccustomed to 
such a mode of considering and disposing of 
human beings would receive. They make 
no impression upon him. His own family 
servants, and those of his friends, are not in 
the market, and he does not realize that any 
are. Under the advertisements, a hundred 
such scenes as those described in " Uncle 
Tom" may have been acting in his very 
vicinity. When Mr. Dickens drew pictures 
of the want and wretchedness of London 
life, perhaps a similar incredulity might 
have been expressed within the silken cur- 
tains of many a brilliant pa'rlor. They 
had never seen such things, and they bad 
always lived in London. But, for all that, 
the writings of Dickens awoke in noble and 
aristocratic bosoms the sense of a common 
humanity with the lowly, and led them to 
feel how much misery might exist in their 
immediate vicinity, of which they were 
entirely unaware. They have never accused 
him as a libeller of his country, though he 
did make manifest much of the suffering, 
sorrow and abuse, which were in it. The 
author is led earnestly to entreat that the 
writer of this very paper would examine 
the "statistics" of the American internal 
slave-trade; that he would look over the 
exchange files of some newspaper, and, for 
a month or two, endeavor to keep some 
inventory of the number of human beings, 
with hearts, hopes and affections, like his 
own, who are constantly subjected to all the 
uncertainties and mutations of property rela- 
tion. The writer is sure that he could not 
do it long without a generous desire being 
excited in his bosom to become, not an apol- 
ogist for, but a reformer of, these institu- 
tions of his country. 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



O/ 



These papers of South Carolina are not 
exceptional ones ; they may be matched by 
hundreds of papers from any other state. 

Let the reader now stop one minute, and 
look over again these two weeks' advertise- 
ments. This is not novel-writing — this is 
fact. See these human beings tumbled pro- 
miscuously out before the public with 
horses, mules, second-hand buggies, cotton- 
seed, bedsteads, &c. &c. ; and Christian 
ladies, in the same newspaper, saying that 
they prayerfully study God's word, and 
believe their institutions have his sanction ! 
Does he suppose that here, in these two 
weeks, there have been no scenes of suffering? 
Imagine tbs distress of these families — the 
nights of anxiety of these mothers and 
children, wives and husbands, when these 
sales are about to take place ! Imagine the 
scenes of the sales ! A young lady, a friend 
of the writer, who spent a winter in Caro- 
lina, described to her the sale of a woman 
and her children. When the little girl, 
seven years of age, was put on the block, 
she fell into spasms with fear and excitement. 
She was taken off — recovered and put 
back — the spasms came back — three times 
the experiment was tried, and at last the 
sale of the child was deferred ! 

See also the following, from Dr. Elwood 
Harvey, editor of a western paper, to the 
Pennsijlvania Freeman. Dec. 25, 1846. 

We attended a sale of land and other property, 
near Petersburg, Virginia, and unexpectedly saw 
slaves sold at public auction. The slaves were 
told they would not be sold, and were collected 
in front of the quarters, gazing on the assembled 
multitude. The land being sold, the auctioneer's 
loud voice was heard, " Bring up the niggers!" 
A shade of astonishment and affright passed over 
their faces, as they stared first at each other, and 
then at the crowd of purchasers, whose attention 
was now directed to them. When the horrible 
truth was revealed to their minds that they were 
to be sold, and nearest relations and friends parted 
forever, the effect was indescribably agonizing. 
Women snatched up their babes, and ran scream- 
ing into the huts. Children hid behind the huts 
and trees, and the men stood in mute despair. 
The auctioneer stood on the portico of the house, 
and the " men and boys" were ranging in the 
yard for inspection. It was announced that no 
warranty of soundness was given, and purchasers 
must examine for themselves. A few old men 
were sold at prices from thirteen to twenty-five 
dollars, and it was painful to see old men, bowed 
with years of toil and suffering, stand up to be the 
jest of brutal tyrants, and to hear them tell their 
disease and worthlessness, fearing that they would 
be bought by traders for the southern market. 

A white boy, about fifteen years old, was placed 
on the stand. His hair was brown and straight, 
his skin exactly the same hue as other white per- 
sons, and no discernible trace of negro features 
in his countenance. 



Some vulgar jests were passed on his color, and 
two hundred dollars was bid for him ; but the audi- 
ence said " that it was not enough to begin on for 
such a likely young nigger." Several remarked 
that they " would not have him as a gift." Some 
said a white nigger was more trouble than he was 
worth. One man said it was wrong to sell while 
people. I asked him if it was more wrong than 
to sell black people. He made no reply. Before 
he was sold, his mother rushed from the house 
upon the portico, crying, in frantic grief, " My 
son, ! my boy, they will take away my dear — " 
Here her voice was lost, as she was rudely pushed 
back and the door closed. The sale was not for a 
moment interrupted, and none of the crowd ap- 
peared to be in the least affected by the scene. 
The poor boy, afraid to cry before so many stran- 
gers, who showed no signs of sympathy or pity, 
trembled, and wiped the tears from his cheeks 
with his sleeves. He was sold for about two 
hundred and fifty dollars. During the sale, the 
quarters resounded with cries and lamentations 
that made my heart ache. A woman was next 
called by name. She gave her infant one wild 
embrace before leaving it with an old woman, and 
hastened mechanically to obey the call ; but 
stopped, threw her arms aloft, screamed and was 
unable to move. 

One of my companions touched my shoulder 
and said, " Come, let us leave here ; I can bear no 
more." We left the ground. The man who 
drove our carriage from Petersburg had two sons 
who belonged to the estate — small boys. He 
obtained a promise that they should not be sold. 
He was asked if they were his only children ; he 
answered, "All that's left of eight." Three 
others had been sold to the south, and he would 
never see or hear from them again. 

As Northern people do not see such things, 
they should hear of them often enough to keep 
them awake to the sufferings of the victims of 
their indifference. 

Such are the common incidents, not the 
admitted cruelties, of an institution which 
people have brought themselves to feel is in 
accordance with God's word ! 

Suppose it be conceded now that "the 
family relation is protected, as far as possi- 
ble.'" The question still arises, How far is 
it possible ? Advertisements of sales to the 
number of those we have quoted, more or 
less, appear from Week to week in the same 
papers, in the same neighborhood ; and pro- 
fessional traders make it their business to 
attend them, and buy up victims. Now, if 
the inhabitants of a given neighborhood 
charge themselves with the care to see that 
no families are separated in this whirl of 
auctioneering, one would fancy that they 
could have very little else to do. It is a 
fact, and a most honorable one to our com- 
mon human nature, that the distress and 
anguish of these poor, helpless creatures 
does often raise up for them friends among 
the generous-hearted. Southern men often 
go to the extent of their means, and beyond 
their means, to arrest the cruel operations 



138 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



of trade, and relieve cases of individual dis- 
tress. There are men at the South who 
could tell, if they would, how, when they 
have spent the last dollar that they thought 
they could afford on one week, they have 
been importuned by precisely such a case 
the next, and been unable to meet it. There 
are masters at the South who could tell, if 
they would, how they have stood and bid 
against a trader, to redeem some poor slave 
of their own, till the bidding was perfectly 
ruinous, and they have been obliged to give 
up by sheer necessity. Good-natured auc- 
tioneers know very well how they have often 
been entreated to connive at keeping a poor 
fellow out of the trader's clutches ; and how 
sometimes they succeed, and sometimes they 
do not. 

The very struggle and effort which gen- 
erous Southern men make to stop the regu- 
lar course of trade only shows them the 
hopelessness of the effort. We fully con- 
cede that many of them do as much or more 
than any of us would do under similar cir- 
cumstances ; and yet they know that what 
they do amounts, after all, to the merest 
trifle. 

But let us still further reason upon the 
testimony of advertisements. What is to be 
understood by the following, of the Mem- 
phis Eagle and Inquirer, Saturday, Nov. 
13, 1852? Under the editorial motto, 
" Liberty and Union, now and forever," 
come the following illustrations : 

NO. Z. 

75 NEGROES. 

^# I liavo just received from the East 75 
JKA assorted A No. 1 negroes. Call soon, if 
SL i you want to get the first choice. 

Benj. Little. 

NO. II. 

CASH FOR NEGROES. 

ffffi I will pay as high cash prices for a few 
jk\ likely young negroes as any trader in this 
,^L. city. Also, will receive and sell on commis- 
sion at Byrd Hill's, old stand, on Adams-street, 
Memphis. Benj. Little. 

NO. III. 

500 NEGROES WANTED. 

Jffi "We will pay the highest cash price 
jjr\ fur all ^ood negroes offered. We in- 
j£3L vite all those having negroes for sale 
to call on us at our Mart, opposite the lower 
Steamboat landing. We will also have a large 
lot of Virginia negroes lor sale in the Fall. We 
have as sale a jail as any in the country, where 
we can keep negroes safe for those that wish them 
kept. Bolton, Dickins & Co. 

Under the head of advertisements No. 1, 
let us humbly inquire what " assorted A 
No. 1 Negroes" means. Is it likely that 



it means negroes sold in families ? What is 
meant by the invitation, " Call soon if you 
want to get the first choice" ? 

So much for Advertisement No. 1. Let 
us now propound a few questions to the 
initiated on No. 2. What does Mr. Benja- 
min Little mean by saying that he " will 
pay as high a cash price for a few likely 
young negroes as any trader in the 
city " ? Do families commonly consist ex- 
clusively of " likely young- negroes" ? 

On the third advertisement we are also 
desirous of some information. Messrs. 
Bolton, Dickins & Co. state that they 
expect to receive a large lot of Virginia 
negroes in the fall. 

Unfortunate Messrs. Bolton, Dickins & 
Co. ! Do you suppose that Virginia fami- 
lies will sell their negroes 'I Have you read 
Mr. J. Thornton Randolph's last novel, 
and have you not learned that old Virginia 
families never sell to traders 1 and, more 
than that, that they always club together 
and buy up the negroes that are for sale in 
their neighborhood, and the traders when 
they appear on the ground are hustled off 
with very little ceremony? One would 
really think that you had got your impres- 
sions on the subject from "Uncle Tom's 
Cabin." For we are told that all who de- 
rive their views of slavery from this book 
' ' regard the families of slaves as utterly 
unsettled and vagrant." * 

But, before we recover from our astonish- 
ment on reading this, we take up the 
Natchez (Mississippi) Courier of Nov. 
20th, 1852, and there read : 

NEGROES. 

The undersigned would respectfully state $& 
to the public that he has leased the stand in Jr\ 
the Forks of the Road, near Natchez, for a^ 
term of years, and that he intends to keep a large 
lot of NEGROES on hand during the year. He 
will sell as low or lower than any other trader at 
this place or in New Orleans. 

He has just arrived from Virginia with a very 
likely lot of Field Men and Women ; also, House 
Servants, three Cooks, and a Carpenter. Call and 
see. 

A fine Buggy Horse, a Saddle Horse and a 
Carryall, on hand, and for sale. 

Tnos. G. James. 

Natchez, Sept. 28, 1852. 

Where in the world did this lucky Mr. 
Tnos. G. James get this likely Virginia 
"assortment"? Probably in some county 
which Mr. Thornton Randolph never visited. 
And had no families been separated to form 



* Article in Frascr's Magazine fur October, by a South 
Carolinian. 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



139 






the assortment 1 We hear of a tot of field 
men and women. Where are their children ? 
We hear of a lot of house-servants, — of 
"three cooks," and "one carpenter," as 
•well as a "fine buggy horse." Had these 
unfortunate cooks and carpenters no rela- 
tions? Did no sad natural tears stream 
down their dark cheeks, when they were 
being "assorted" for the Natchez market? 
Does no mournful heart among them yearn 
to the song of 

" O, carry me back to old Virginny " 1 

Still further, we see in the same paper the 
following : 

SLAVES! SLAVES! SLAVES! 

/*# Fresh Arrivals Weekly. — Having estab- 
jgA lished ourselves at the Forks of the Road, 
.SL. near Natchez, for a term of years, we have 
now on hand, and intend to keep throughout the 
entire year, a large and well-selected stock of 
Negroes, consisting of field-hands, house servants, 
mechanics, cooks, seamstresses, washers, ironers, 
etc., which we can and will sell as low or lower 
than any other house here or in New Orleans. 

Persons wishing to purchase would do well to 

call on us before making purchases elsewhere, as 

■ our regular arrivals will keep us supplied with a 

good and general assortment. Our terms are 

liberal. Give us a call. 

Griffin & Pullam. 
Natchez, Oct. 15, 1852.-6m. 
Free Trader and Concordia Intelligencer copy 
as above. 

Indeed ! Messrs. Griffin and Pullam, it 
seems, are equally fortunate ! They are 
having fresh supplies weekly, and are going 
to keep a large, well-selected stock con- 
stantly on hand, to wit, ' ' field-hands, house- 
servants, mechanics, cooks, seamstresses, 
washers, ironers, etc." 

Let us respectfully inquire what is the 
process by which a trader acquires a well- 
selected stock. He goes to Virginia to select. 
He has had orders, say, for one dozen cooks, 
for half a dozen carpenters, for so many 
house-servants, &c. &c. Each one of these 
individuals have their own ties ; besides 
being cooks, carpenters and house-servants, 
they are also fathers, mothers, husbands, 
wives ; but what of that ? They must be 
selected — it is an assortmeiit that is wanted. 
The gentleman who has ordered a cook does 
not, of course, want her five children ; and 
the planter who has ordered a carpenter does 
not want the cook, his wife. A carpenter 
is an expensive article, at any rate, as they 
cost from a thousand to fifteen hundred dol- 
lars ; and a man who has to pay out this 
sum for him cannot always afford himself 
the luxury of indulging his humanity ; and 



as to the children, they must be left in the 
slave-raising state. For, when the ready- 
raised article is imported weekly into 
Natchez or New Orleans, is it likely that 
the inhabitants will encumber themselves 
with the labor of raising children ? No, there 
must be division of labor in all well-ordered 
business. The northern slave states raise 
the article, and the southern ones con- 
sume it. 

The extracts have been taken from the 
papers of the more southern states. If, now, 
the reader has any curiosity to explore the 
selecting process in the northern states, the 
daily prints will further enlighten him. In 
the Daily Virginian of Nov. 19, 1852, 
Mr. J. B. McLendon thus announces to the 
Old Dominion that he has settled himself 
down to attend to the selecting process : 

NEGROEES WA7VTD. 

The subscriber, having located in Lynchburg, is 
giving the highest cash prices for negroes between 
the ages of 10 and 30 years. Those having 
negroes for sale may find it to their interest to 
call on him at the Washington Hotel, Lynchburg, 
or address him by letter. 

All communications will receive prompt atten- 
tion. J. B. McLendon. 

nov. 5-dly. 

Mr. McLendon distinctly announces that 
he is not going to take any children under 
ten years of age, nor any grown people over 
thirty. Likely young negroes are what he 
is after : — families, of course, never separ- 
ated ! 

Again, in the same paper, Mr. Seth 
Woodroof is desirous of keeping up the 
recollection in the community that he also 
is in the market, as it would appear he has 
been, some time past. He, likewise, wants 
negroes between ten and thirty years of age ; 
but his views turn rather on mechanics, 
blacksmiths, and carpenters, — witness his 
hand : 

NEGROES WANTED. 

The subscriber continues in market for Negroes, 
of both sexes, between the ages of 10 and 30 
years, including Mechanics, such as Blacksmiths, 
Carpenters, and will pay the highest market prices 
in cash. His office is a newly erected brick build- 
ing on 1st or Lynch street, immediately in rear of 
the Farmers" Bank, where he is prepared (having 
erected buildings with that view) to board negroes 
sent to Lynchburg for sale or otherwise on as 
moderate terms, and keep them as secure, as if 
they were placed in the jail of the Corporation. 

aug 26. , Seth Woodroof. 

There is no manner of doubt that thi8 
Mr. Seth Woodroof is a gentleman of hu- 
manity, and wishes to avoid the separation 



140 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 



of families as much as possible. Doubt- 
less he ardently wishes that all his black- 
smiths and carpenters would be considerate, 
and never have any children under ten years 
of age ; but. if the thoughtless dogs have got 
them, what 's a humane man to do ? He has 
to fill out Mr. This, That, and the Other's 
order, — that 's a clear case ; and therefore 
John and Sam must take their last look 
at their babies, as Uncle Tom did of his 
when he stood by the rough trundle-bed 
and dropped into it great, useless tears. 

Nay, my friends, don't curse poor Mr. 
Seth Woodroof, because he does the horrible, 
loathsome work of tearing up the living 
human heart, to make twine and shoe-strings 
for you ! It 's disagreeable business enough, 
he will tell you, sometimes ; and, if you must 
have him to do it for you, treat him civilly, 
and don't pretend that you are any better 
than he. 

But the good trade is not confined to the 
Old Dominion, by any means. See the fol- 
lowing extract from a Tennessee paper, the 
Nashville Gazette, Nov. 23, 1852, where 
Mr. A. A. McLean, general agent in this 
kind of business, thus makes known his 
wants and intentions : 

WANTED. 

I want to purchase immediately 25 likely 
NEGROES, — male and female, — between the 
ages of 15 and 25 years; for which I will pay 
the highest price in cash. 

A. A. McLean, General Agent, 

nov 9 Cherry Street. 

Mr. McLean, it seems, only wants those 
between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five. 
This advertisement is twice repeated in the 
same paper, from which fact we may con- 
jecture that the gentleman is very much in 
earnest in his wants, and entertains rather 
confident expectations that somebody will 
be willing to sell. Further, the same gen- 
tleman states another want. 

WANTED. 

I want to purchase, immediately, a Negro. man, 
Carpenter, and will give a good price. 

sept 29 A. A. McLean, Gcn'l Agent. 

Mr. McLean does not advertise for his 
wife and children, or where this same car- 
penter is to be sent, — whether to the New 
Orleans market, or up the Red River, or 
off to some far bayou of the Mississippi, 
never to look upon wife or child again. Rut, 
again, Mr. McLean in the same paper tells 
us of another want : 



WANTEF) IMMEDIATELY. 

A "Wet Nurse. Any price will be given for one 
of good character, constitution, &c. Apply to 
A. A. McLean, Gen I Agent. 



And whftt is to be done with the baby of 
this wet nurse ') Perhaps, at the moment 
that Mr. McLean is advertising for her, she 
is hushing the little thing in her bosom, and 
thinking, as many another mother has done, 
that it is about the brighest, prettiest little 
baby that ever was born; for, singularly 
enough, even black mothers do fall into this 
delusion sometimes. No matter for all this, 
— she is wanted for a wet nurse ! Aunt 
Prue can take her baby, and raise it on 
corn-cake, and what not. Off with her to 
Mr. McLean ! 

See, also, the following advertisement of 
the good State of Alabama, which shows 
how the trade is thriving there. Mr. S. N. 
Brown, in the Advertiser and Gazette, 
Montgomery, Alabama, holds forth as fol- 
lows : 

NEGROES FOR SALE. • 
S. N. Brown takes this method of informing his 
old patrons, and others waiting to purchase Slaves, 
that he has now on hand, of his own selection 
and purchasing, a lot of likely young Negroes, 
consisting of Men, Boys, and Women, Field Hands, 
and superior House Servants, which he offers 
and will sell as low as the times will warrant. 
Office on Market-street, above the Montgomery 
Hall, at Lindsay's Old Stand, where he intends to 
keep slaves for sale on his own account, and not 
on commission, — therefore thinks he can give 
satisfaction to those who patronize him. 

Montgomery, Ala., Sept. 13, 1852. twtf (j) 

"Where were these boys and girls of Mr. 
Brown selected, let us ask. How did their 
fathers and mothers feel when they were 
"selected" ? Emmeline was taken out of 
one family, and George out of another. The 
judicious trader has travelled through wide 
regions of country, leaving in his track 
wailing and anguish. A little incident, 
which has recently been the rounds of the 
papers, may perhaps illustrate some of the 
scenes he has occasioned : 

INCIDENT OF SLAVERY. 

A negro woman belonging to Geo. M. Garrison, 
of Polk Co., killed four other children, by cutting 
their throats while they were asleep, on Thursday 
night, the 2d inst., and then put an end to her 
own existence by cutting her throat. Her master 
knows of no cause for the horrid act, unless it be 
that she heard him speak of selling her and two 
of her children, and keeping the others. 

The uncertainty of the master in this 
case is edifying. Ite knows that negroes 
cannot be expected to have the feelings of 
cultivated people ; — and yet, here is a case 
where the creature really acts unaccountably, 
and he can't think of any cause except that 
he was going to sell her from her children. 

But, compose yourself, dear reader; there 
was no great harm done. These were all 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



141 



poor people's children, and some of them, 
though not all, were black ; and that makes 
all the difference in the world, you knoAY ! 

But Mr. Brown is not alone in Montgom- 
ery. Mr. J. W. Lindsey wishes to remind 
the people of his depot. 

lOO NEGROES FOR SAL.E, 

At my depot, on Commerce-street, immediately 
between the Exchange Hotel and F. M. Gilmer, 
Jr.'s Warehouse, where I will be receiving, from 
time to time, large lots of Negroes during the sea- 
son, and will sell on as accommodating terms as 
any house in this city. I would respectfully 
request my old customers and friends to call and 
examine my stock. Jno. W. Lindsey. 

Montgomery, Nov. 2, 1852. 

Mr. Lindsey is going to be receiving, 
from time to time, all the season, and will 
sell as cheap as anybody ; so there 's no fear 
of the supply's falling off. And, lo ! in the 
same paper, Messrs. Sanders & Foster press 
their claims also on the public notice. 

NEGROES FOR SALE. 

The undersigned have bought out the well-known 
establishment of Eckles & Brown, where they have 
now on hand a large lot of likely young Negroes, 
to wit : Men, Women, Boys and Girls, good field- 
hands. Also, several good House Servants and 
Mechanics of all kinds. The subscribers intend 
to keep constantly on hand a large assortment of 
Negroes, comprising every description. Persons 
wishing to purchase will find it much to their 
interest to call and examine previous to buying 
elsewhere. Sanders & Fostek. 

April 13. 

Messrs. Sanders & Foster are going to 
have an assortment also. All their negroes 
are to be young and likely ; the trashy old 
fathers and mothers are all thrown aside like 
a heap of pig- weed, after one has been weed- 
ing a garden. 

Query : Are these Messrs. Sanders & 
Foster, and J. W. Lindsey, and S. N. 
Brown, and McLean, and Woodroof, and 
McLendon, all members of the church, 
in good and regular standing? Does the 
question shock you ? Why so ? Why 
should they not be ? The Rev. Dr. Smylie, 
of Mississippi, in a document endorsed by 
two presbyteries, says distinctly that the 
Bible gives a right to buy and sell slaves.* 

If the Bible guarantees this right, and 
sanctions this trade, why should it shock you 
to see the slave-trader at the communion- 



* " If language can convey a clear and definite mean- 
ing at all, I know not how it can more unequivocally or 
more plainly present to the mind any thought or idea 
than the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus clearly or une- 
quivocally establishes the fact that slavery or bondage 
was sanctioned by God himself ; and that ' buying, selling, 
holding and bequeathing ' slaves, as property, are regula- 
tions which were established by himself." — Smylie on 
Slavery. 



table ? Do you feel that there is blood on 
his hands, — the blood of human hearts, 
which he has torn asunder ? Do you shud- 
der when he touches the communion-bread, 
and when he drinks the cup which " who- 
soever drinketh unworthily drinketh damna- 
tion to himself"? But who makes the 
trader ? Do not you ? Do you think that 
the trader's profession is a healthy one for 
the soul? Do you think the scenes with 
which he must be familiar, and the deeds he 
must do, in order to keep up an assortment 
of negroes for your convenience, are such 
things as Jesus Christ approves ? Do you 
think they tend to promote his growth in 
grace, and to secure his soul's salvation? 
Or is it so important for you to have assorted 
negroes that the traders must not only be 
turned out of good society in this life, but 
run the risk of going to hell forever, for 
your accommodation ? 

But let us search the Southern papers, 
and see if we cannot find some evidence of 
that humanity which avoids the separation 
of families, as far as possible. In the 
Argus, published at Weston, Missouri, 
Nov. 5, 1852, see the following : 

A NEGRO FOR SALE. 

I wish to sell a black girl about 24 years old, a 
good cook and washer, handy with a needle, can 
spin and weave. I wish to sell her in the neigh- 
borhood of Camden Point ; if not sold there in a 
short time, I will hunt the best market ; or I will 
trade her for two small ones, a boy and girl. 

M. DOYAL. 

Considerate Mr. Doyal ! He is opposed 
to the separation of families, and, therefore, 
wishes to sell this woman in the neighbor- 
hood of Camden Point, where her family 
ties are, — perhaps her husband and chil- 
dren, her brothers or sisters. He will not 
separate her from her family if it is possi- 
ble to avoid it ; that is to say, if he can get 
as much for her without ; but, if he can't, 
he will "hunt the best market.'''' What 
more would you have of Mr. Doyal ? 

How speeds the blessed trade in the State 
of Maryland? — Let us take the Baltimore 
Sun of Nov. 23, 1852. 

Mr. J. S. Donovan thus advertises the 
Christian public of the accommodations of 
his jail : 

CASH FOR NEGROES. 

The undersigned continues, at his old stand, 
No. 13 Camden St., to pay the highest price for 
Negroes. Persons bringing Negroes by railroad 
or steamboat will find it very convenient to secure 
their Negroes, as my Jail is adjoining the Rail- 
road Depot and near the Steamboat Landings. 
Negroes received for safe keeping. 

J. S. Donovan. 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



142 

Messrs. B. M. & W. L. Campbell, in the 
respectable old stand of Slatter, advertise as 
follows : 

SLAVES WANTED. 

We are at all times purchasing Slaves, paying 
the highest cash prices. Persons wishing to sell 
will please call at 242 Pratt St. (Slatter's old 
stand). Communications attended to. 

B. M. & W. L. Campbell. 

In another column, however, Mr. John 
Denning has his season advertisement, in 
terms which border on the sublime : 

5000 NEGROES WANTED. 

I will pay the highest prices, in cash, for 5000 
Negroes, with good titles, slaves for life or for a 
term of years, in large or small families, or single 
negroes. I will also purchase Negroes restricted 
to remain in the State, that sustain good charac- 
ters. Families never separated. Persons having 
Slaves for sale will please call and see me, as I 
am always in the market with the cash. Com- 
munications promptly attended to, and liberal 
commissions ( paid, by John N. Denning, No. 18 
S. Frederick street, between Baltimore and Second 
streets, Baltimore, Maryland. Trees in front of 
the house. 

Mr. John Denning, also, is a man of hu- 
manity. He never separates families. Don't 
you see it in his advertisement? If a man 
offers him a wife without her husband, Mr. 
John Denning won't buy her. 0, no ! His 
five thousand are all unbroken families ; he 
never takes any other ; and he transports 
them whole and entire. This is a comfort 
to reflect upon, certainly. 

See, also, the Democrat, published in 
Cambridge, Maryland, Dec. 8, 1852. A 
gentleman gives this pictorial representation 
of himself, with the proclamation to the 
slave-holders of Dorchester and adjacent 
counties that he is again in the market : 

NEGROES WANTED. 

I wish to inform the slave-holders of 
QT Dorchester and the ad jacent counties that I 
jjp am again in the Market. Persons having 
*-*- negroes that are slaves for life to dispose 
of will find it to their interest to see me before 
they sell, as I am determined to pay the highest 
prices in casli that the Southern market will jus- 
tify. I can be found at A. Hall's Hotel in Easton, 
where 1 will remain until the first day of July 
next. Communications addressed to me at Easton, 
or information given to Win. Bell in Cambridge, 
will meet with prompt attention. 

Wm. Harker. 

Mr. Harker is very accommodating. He 
keeps himself informed as to the state of the 
southern market, and will give the very 
highest price that it will justify. Moreover, 
he will be on hand till July, and will answer 
any letters from the adjoining country on 



the subject. On one point he ought to be 
spoken to. He has not advertised that he 
does not separate families. It is a mere 
matter of taste, to be sure; but then some 
well-disposed people like to see it on a 
trader's card, thinking it has a more credit- 
able appearance ; and, probably, Mr. Harker, 
if he reflects a little, will put it in next time. 
It takes up very little room, and makes a 
good appearance. 

We are occasionally reminded, by the 
advertisements for runaways, to how small 
an extent it is found possible to avoid the 
separation of families: as in the Richmond 
Whig of Nov. 5, 1852 : 

$10 REWARD. 

We are requested by Henry P. Davis to offer a 
reward of $10 for the apprehension of a negro 
man named Henry, who ran away from the said 
Davis' farm near Petersburg, on Thursday, the 
27 th October. Said slave came from near Lynch- 
burg, Va., purchased of Cock, and has a 

wife in Halifax county, Va. He has recently 
been employed on the South Side Railroad. He 
may be in the neighborhood of his wife. 

Pulliam & Davis, Aucls., Richmond. 

It seems to strike the advertiser as possi- 
ble that Henry may be in the neighborhood 
of his wife. We should not at all wonder 
if he were. 

The reader, by this time, is in possession 
of some of those statistics of which the 
South Carolinian speaks, when he says, 

We feel confident, if statistics could be had, to 
throw light upon the subject, we should find that 
there is less separation of families among the 
negroes than occurs with almost any other class 
of persons. 

In order to give some little further idea 
of the extent to which this kind of property 
is continually changing hands, see the fol- 
lowing calculation, which has been made 
from sixty-four Southern newspapers, taken 
very much at random. The papers were all 
published in the last two weeks of the month 
of November, 1852. 

The negroes are advertised sometimes by 
name, sometimes in definite numbers, and 
sometimes in "lots," "assortments," and 
other indefinite terms. We present the 
result of this estimate, far as it must fall 
from a fair representation of the facts, in a 
tabular form. 

Here is recorded, in only eleven papers, 
the sale of eight hundred forty-nine slaves 
in two weeks in Virginia ; the state where 
Mr. J. Thornton Randolph describes such 
an event as a separation of families being a 
thing that " we read of in novels sometimes." 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



143 



States where 
published. 



Virginia, 

Kentucky, 

Tennessee, 

S. Carolina, 

Georgia, 

Alabama, 

Mississippi, 

Louisiana, 





P"S 
















° a 


KS 


&* 


&° 


£ 




11 


849 


7 


5 


238 


1 


8 


385 


4 


12 


852 


2 


6 


98 


2 


10 


549 


5 


8 


669 


5 


4 


460 


4 


G4 


4100 


30 






15 

7 
17 
7 

5 
6 
35 

92 



In South Carolina, where the writer in 
Fraser's Magazine dates from, we have 
during these same two weeks a sale of eight 
hundred and fifty-two recorded by one dozen 
papers. Verily, we must apply to the news- 
papers of his state the same language which 
he applies to " Uncle Tom's Cabin :" " Were 
our views of the system of slavery to be 
derived from these papers, we should regard 
the families of slaves as utterly unsettled 
ind vagrant." 

The total, in sixty-four -papers, in differ- 
ent states, for only two weeks, is four thou- 
sand one hundred, besides ninety-two lots, 
as they are called. 

And now, who is he who compares the 
hopeless, returnless- separation of the negro 
from his family, to the voluntary separation 
of the freeman, whom necessary business in- 
terest takes for a while from the bosom of 
his family 1 Is not the lot of the slave 
bitter enough, without this last of mockeries 
and worst of insults ? Well may they say, 
in their anguish, " Our soul is exceedingly 
filled with the scorning of them that are at 
ease, and with the contempt of the proud ! " 

From the poor negro, exposed to bitterest 
separation, the law jealously takes away the 
power of writing. For him the gulf of sep- 
aration yawns black and hopeless, with no 
redeeming signa' Ignorant of geography, 
he knows not whither he is going, or where 
he is, or how to direct a letter. To all in- 
tents and purposes, it is a separation hope- 
less as that of death, and as final. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE SLAVE-TRADE. 

What is it that constitutes the vital force 
of the institution of slavery in this country ? 



Slavery, being an unnatural and unhealth- 
ful condition of society, being a most waste- 
ful and impoverishing mode of cultivating 
the soil, would speedily run itself out in a 
community, and become so unprofitable as 
to fall into disuse, were it not kept alive by 
some unnatural process. 

What has that process been in America 1 
Why has that healing course of nature which 
cured this awful wound in all the northern 
states stopped short on Mason & Dixon's 
line ? In Delaware, Maryland, Virginia 
and Kentucky, slave labor long ago impov- 
erished the soil almost beyond recovery, 
and became entirely unprofitable. In all 
these states it is well known that the ques- 
tion of emancipation has been urgently pre- 
sented. It has been discussed in legisla- 
tures, and Southern men have poured forth 
on the institution of slavery such anathemas 
as only Southern men can pour forth. All 
that has ever been said of it at the North 
has been said in four-fold thunders in these 
Southern discussions. The State of Ken- 
tucky once came within one vote, in her 
legislature, of taking measures for gradual 
emancipation. The State of Virginia has 
come almost equally near, and Maryland 
has long been waiting at the door. There 
was a time when no one doubted that all. 
these states would soon be free states ; and 
what is now the reason that they are not 1 
Why are these discussions'now silenced, and 
why does this noble determination now ret- 
rograde ] The answer is in a word. It is 
the extension of slave territory, the open- 
ing of a great southern slave-market, and 
the organization of a great internal slave- 
trade, that has arrested the progress of 
emancipation. 

While these states were beginning to look 
upon the slave as one who might possibly 
yet become a man, while they meditated 
giving to him and his wife and children the 
inestimable blessings of liberty, this great 
southern slave-mart was- opened. It began 
by the addition of Missouri as slave territory, 
and the votes of two Northern men were 
those which decided this great question. 
Then, by the assent and concurrence of 
Northern men, came in all the immense ac- 
quisition of slave territory which now opens 
so~ boundless a market to tempt the avarice 
and cupidity of the northern slave-raising 
states. 

This acquisition of territory has deferred 
perhaps for indefinite ages the emancipation 
of a race. It has condemned to sorrow and 



144 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



heart-breaking separation, to groans and 
wailings, hundreds of thousands of slave 
families ; it has built, through all the South- 
ern States, slave-warehouses, with all their 
ghastly furnishings of gags, and thumb- 
screws, and cow hides ; it has organized 
unnumbered slave-coffles, clanking their 
chains and filing in mournful march through 
this land of liberty. 

This accession of slave territory hardened 
the heart of the master. It changed what 
was before, in comparison, a kindly relation, 
into the most horrible and inhuman of trades. 

The planter whose slaves had grown up 
around him, and whom he had learned to 
look upon almost as men and women, saw 
on every sable forehead now nothing but its 
market value. This man was a thousand 
dollars, and this eight hundred. The black 
baby in its mother's arms was a hundred- 
dollar bill, and nothing more. All those 
nobler traits of mind and heart which should 
have made the slave a brother became only 
so many stamps on his merchandise. Is the 
slave intelligent ? — Good ! that raises his 
price two hundred dollars. Is he conscien- 
tious and faithful ? — Good ! stamp it down 
in his certificate ; it 's worth two hundred 
dollars more. Is he religious 1 Does that 
•Holy Spirit of God, Avhose name we men- 
tion with reverence and fear, make that 
despised form His temple 7 — Let that also 
be put down in the estimate of his market 
value, and the gift of the Holy Ghost shall be 
sold for money. Is he a minister of God 7 — 
Nevertheless, he has his price in the market. 
From the church and from the communion- 
table the Christian brother and sister are 
taken to make up the slave-coffle. And 
woman, with her tenderness, her gentleness, 
her beauty, — woman, to whom mixed blood 
of the black and the white have given graces 
perilous for a slave, — what is her accursed 
lot, in this dreadful commerce '? — The next 
few chapters will disclose facts on this subject 
which ought to wring the heart of every 
Christian mother, if, indeed, she be worthy 
of that holiest name. 

But we will not deal in assertions merely. 
We have stated the thing to be proved ; let us 
show the facts which prove it. 

The existence of this fearful traffic is 
known to many, — the particulars and 
dreadful extent of it realized but by few. 

Let ns enter a little more particularly on 
them. The slave-exporting states are Mary- 
land, Virginia. Kentucky, North Carolina. 
Tennessee and Missouri. These are slave- 
raising states, and the others arc slave-con- 



suming states. We have shown, in the pre- 
ceding chapters, the kind of advertisements 
which are usual in those states ; but, as we 
wish to produce on the minds of our readers 
something of the impression which has been 
produced on our own mind by their multi- 
plicity and abundance we shall add a few 
more here. For the State of Virginia, see 
all the following : 

Kanawha Republican, Oct. 20, 1852, 
Charleston, Va. At the head — Liberty, 
with a banner, " Drapeau sans Tteche." 

CASH FOR NEGROES. 

The subscriber wishes to purchase a few young 
NEGROES, from 12 to 25 years of age, for which 
the highest market price will be paid in cash. A 
few lines addressed to him through the Post Office, 
Kanawha 0. II., or a personal application, will 
be promptly attended to. Jas. L. Ficklin. 

Oct. 20, '53. — 3t 

Alexandria Gazette, Oct. 28th : 

CASH FOR NEGROES. 

I wish to purchase immediately, for the South, 
any number of NEGROES, from 10 to 30 years of 
age, for which I will pay the very highest cash 
price. All communications jmmiptly attended to. 

Joseph Bruin. 

West End, Alexandria, Va., Oct. 20. — tf 

Lynchburg Virginian, Nov. 18 : 

NEGROES WANTED. 

The subscriber, having located in Lynchburg, is 
giving the highest cash prices for negroes, between 
the ages of lO and 30 years. Those having negroes 
for sale may find it to their interest to call on him 
at the Washington Hotel, Lynchburg, or address 
him by letter. 

All communications will receive prompt atten- 
tion. J. B. McLendon. 

Nov. 5. — dly 

Rockingham Register, Nov. 13 : 

CASH FOR NEGROES. 

I wish to purchase a number of NEGROES of 
both sexes and all ages, for the Southern market, 
for which I will pay the highest cash prices. 
Letters addressed to me at Winchester, Virginia, 
will be promptly attended to. 

II. J. McDaniel, Agent 

Nov. 24, 1846. — tf for Win. Crow. 

Richmond Whig, Nov. 16 : 

PUL.L.IAM & DAVIS, 

AUCTIONEERS FOE THE SALE OF NEGROES. 

D. M. PuLLUM. Hector Davis. 

The subscribers continue to sell Negroes, at 
their office, on Wall-street. From their experi- 
ence in the business, they can safely insure the 
highest prices for all negroes intrusted to their 
care. They will make sales of negroes in estates, 
and would say to Commissioners, Executors and 
Administrators, that they will make their sales on 
favorable terms. They are prepared to board and 
lodge negroes comfortably at 25 cents per day. 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



145 



NOTICE. — CASH FOR SLAVES. 

Those who wish to sell slaves in Buckingham 
and the adjacent counties in Virginia, hy applica- 
tion to Anderson D. Abraham, Sr., or his son, 
Anderson D. Abraham, Jr., they will find sale, at 
the highest cash prices, for one hundred and fifty 
to two hundred slaves. One or the other of _ the 
above parties will be found, for the next eight 
months, at their residence in the aforesaid county 
and state. Address Anderson D. Abraham, Sr., 
Maysville Post Office, White Oak Grove, Buck- 
ingham. County, Va. 

Winchester Republican, June 29, 1852 : 

NEGROES WANTED. 

The subscriber having located himself in "Win- 
chester, Va., wishes to purchase a large number 
of SLAVES of both sexes, for which he will give 
the highest price in cash. Persons wishing to 
dispose of Slaves will find it to their advantage 
to give him a call before selling. 

All communications addressed to him at the 
Taylor Hotel, Winchester, Va., will meet with 
prompt attention. Elijah McDowel, 

Agent for B. M. & Wm. L. Campbell, 

Dec. 27, 1851. — ly of Baltimore. 



For Maryland : 

Port Tobacco Times, Oct., '52 : 

SLAVES WANTED. 

The subscriber is permanently located at Mid- 
bleville, Charles County (immediately on the 
road from Port Tobacco to Allen's Fresh), where 
he vail be pleased to buy any Slaves that are for 
sale.' The extreme value will be given at all 
times, and liberal commissions paid for informa- 
tion leading to a purchase. Apply personally, or 
by letter addressed to Allen's Fresh, Charles 
County. John G. Campbell. 

Middleville, April 14, 1852. 



(Md.) Democrat, October 



prices will be paid. All communications ad- 
dressed to me in Baltimore will be punctually at- 
tended to. Lewis Winters. 
Jan. 2. — tf 



Cambridge 
27, 1852: 

NEGROES WANTED. 

I wish to inform the slave-holders of Dorches- 
ter and the adjacent counties that I am again in 
the market. Persons having negroes that are 
(slaves for life to dispose of will find it to their in- 
terest to see me before they sell, as I am deter- 
mined to pay the highest prices in cash that the 
Southern market will justify. I can be found at 
A. Hall*s Hotel, in Easton, where I will remain 
until the first day of July next. Communications 
addressed to me at Easton, or information given 
to Wm. Bell, in Cambridge, will meet with prompt 
attention. 

I will be at John Bradahaw's Hotel, in Cam- 
bridge, every Monday. Wm. Harker. 

Oct. 6, 1852. — 3m 

The Westminster Carroltonian, Oct. 
22, 1852 : 

25 NEGROES WANTED. 

The undersigned wishes to purchase 25 LIKELY 
YOUNG NEGROES, for which the highest cash 
10 



For Tennessee the following : 
Nashville True Whig, Oct. 20th, '52 : 

FOR SALE. 

21 likely Negroes, of different ages. 

Oct. 6. A. A. McLean, Gen. Agent. 



WANTED. 

I want to purchase, immediately, a Negro man, 
Carpenter, and will give a good price. 

Oct. 6. A. A. McLean, Gen. Agent. 

Nashville Gazette, October 22 : 

FOR SALE. 

SEVERAL likely girls from 10 to 18 years old, 
a woman 24, a very valuable woman 25 years old, 
with three very likely children. 

Williams & Glover. 

Oct. 16th, 1852. a. b. u. 



WANTED. 

I want to purchase Twenty-five LIKELY 
NEGROES, between the ages of 18 and 25 years, 
male and female, for which I will pay the highest 
price in cash. A. A. McLean. 

Oct. 20. Cherry Street. 

The Memphis Daily Eagle and En- 
quirer : 

500 NEGROES WANTED. 

We will pay the highest cash price for all good 
negroes offered. We invite all those having 
negroes for sale to call on us at our mart, opposite 
the lower steamboat landing. We will also have 
a large lot of Virginia negroes for sale in the Fall. 
We have as safe a jail as any in the country, 
where we can keep negroes safe for those that 
wish them kept. Bolton, Dickjns & Co. 

je 13 — d & w 

LAND AND NEGROES FOR SALE. 

A good bargain will be given in about 400 acres 
of Land ; 200 acres are in a fine state of cultiva- 
tion, fronting the Railroad about ten miles from 
Memphis. Together with 18 or 20 likely negroes, 
consisting of men, women, boys and girls. Good 
time will be given on a portion of the purchase 
money. J. M. Provink. 

Oct. 17. — lm. 

Clarksville Chronicle, Dec. 3, 1852: 

NEGROES WANTED. 

We wish to hire 25 good Steam Boat hands for 
the New Orleans and Louisville trade. We witl 
pay very full prices for the Season, commencing 
about the 15th November. 

McClure & Crozier, Agent* 

Sept. 10th, 1852. — lm S. B. Bellpoor. 



146 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



Missouri : 



The Daily St. Louis Times, October 
14, 1852 : 

REUBEN BARTLETT, 

On Chosnut, between Sixth and Seventh streets, 
near the city jail, will pay the highest price in 
cash for all good negroes offered. There are also 
other buyers to be found in the office very anxious 
to purchase, who will pay the highest prices given 
in cash. 

Negroes boarded at the lowest rates. 

jyi5 — Gm. 

NEGROES. 

BLAKFLY and McAFEE having dissolved co- 
partnership by mutual consent, the subscriber 
will at all times pay the highest cash prices for 
negroes of every description. Will also attend to 
the sale of negroes on commission, having a jail 
and yard fitted up expressly for boarding them. 

g^T Negroes for sale at all times. 

3 A. B. McAfee, 93 Olive street. 



ONE HUNDRED NEGROES WANTED. 

Having just returned from Kentucky, I wish to 
purchase, as soon as possible, one hundred likely 
negroes, consisting of men, women, boys and girls, 
for a hich I will pay at all times from fifty to one 
hundred dollars on the head more money than any 
sither trading man in the city of St. Louis, or the 
State of Missouri. I can at all times be found at 
Barnum's City Hotel, St. Louis, Mo. 

jel2d&wly. John Mattl\glv. 

From another St. Louis paper : 

NEGROES \V ANTED. 

I will pay at all times the highest price in cash 
for all good negroes offered. I am buying for the 
Memphis and Louisiana markets, and can afford 
to pay, and will pay, as high as any trading man 
in this State. All those having negroes to sell 
will do well to give me a call at No. 210, corner 
of Sixth and Wash streets, St Louis, Mo. 

Tuos. Dickens, 
of the firm of Bolton, Dickins & Ce. 

©18 — Gm* 



ONE HUNDRED NEGROES WANTED. 

Having just returned from Kentucky, I wish to 
purchase one hundred likely Negroes, consisting 
of men and women, boys and girls, for which I 
will pay in cash from fifty to one hundred dollars 
more than any other trading man in the city of 
St. Louis Or the State of Missouri. 1 ran at all 
times be found at Barnum's City Hotel, St. Louis, 
Mo. John Mattingly. 

jel4d&wly 



B. M. LYNCH, 

No. 104 Locust street, St Louis. Missouri, 
Is prepared to pay the highest prices in cash for 
d and likely negroes, or will furnish boarding 
hers, in < ifortable quarters and under se- 
cure fastenings. He will also attend to the sale 
I urchase of negroes on coinm if 3ion. 

Negroes for sale at all times. &w 



We ask you, Christian reader, we beg 
you to think, what sort of scenes are going 
on in Virginia under these advertisements 1 
You see that they are carefully worded so as 
to take only the young people ; and they are 
only a specimen of the standing, season ad- 
vertisements which are among the most com- 
mon things in the Virginia papers. A suc- 
ceeding chapter will open to the reader the 
interior of these slave-prisons, and show him 
something of the daily incidents of this kind 
of trade. Now let us look at the corre- 
sponding advertisements in the southern 
states. The coffles made up in Virginia 
and other states are thus announced in the 
southern market. 

From the Natchez (Mississippi) Free 
Trader, Nov. 20 : 

NEGROES FOR SALE. 

The undersigned have just arrived, direct from 
Richmond, Va., with a large and likely lot of 
Negroes, consisting of Field Hands, House 
Servants, Seamstresses, Cooks, Washers and 
Ironers, a first-rate brick mason, and other me- 
chanics, which they now offer for sale at the Forks 
of the Road, near Natchez (Miss.), on the most 
accommodating terms. 

They will continue to receive fresh supplies 
from Richmond, Va., during the season, and will 
be able to furnish to any order any description of 
Negroes sold in Richmond. 

Persons wishing to purchase would do well to 
give us a call before purchasing elsewhere. 

nov20-Gm Matthews, Branton & Co. 



To The Public. 

NEGROES BOUGHT AND SOLD. 

Robert S. Adams & Moses J. Wicks have this 
day associated themselves under the name and 
style of Adams & Wicks, for the purpose of buy- 
ing and selling Negroes, in the city of Aberdeen, 
and elsewhere. They have an Agent who has 
been purchasing Negroes for them in the Old 
States for the last two months. One of the firm, 
Robert S. Adams, leaves this day for North Caro- 
lina and Virginia, and will buy a large number of 
negroes for this market. They will keep at their 
depot in Aberdeen, during the coming fall and 
winter, a large lot of choice Negroes, which they 
will sell low fur cash, or for lulls on Mobile. 
Robert S. Adams, 
Moses J. Wicks. 

Aberdeen, Miss May 7th, 1852. 



SLAVES! SLAVES! SLAVES! 

FRESn arrivals WEEKLY. — Having established 
ourselves at the Forks of the Road, near Natchez, 
for a term of years, we have now onhand,and in- 
tend to keep throughout the entire year, a large 
and well-selected stock of Negroes, consistm of 
field-hands, house servants, mechanics, cooks, 
seamstresses, washers, ironers, etc.. which we can 
sell and will sell as L< w or lower than anj 
house here < >r in New ( Means. 

Persons wishing to purchase would do well cu 
call on us before making purchases elsewhere, as 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



our regular arrivals •will keep us supplied with a 
good and general assortment. Our terms are lib- 
eral. Give us a call. 

Griffin & Pullum. 
Natchez, Oct. 16, 1S52. 6m 



NEGROES FOR SALE. 

I have just returned to my stand, at the Forks 
of the Road, with fifty likely young NEGROES 
for sale. " R. H. Elam. 

sept 22 . 

NOTICE. 

The undersigned would respectfully state to the 
public that he has leased the stand in the Forks 
of the Road, near Natchez, for a terra of years, and 
that he intends to keep a large lot of NEGROES on 
hand during the year. He will sell as low, or 
lower, than any other trader at this place or in 
New Orleans. 

He has just arrived from Virginia, with a very 
likely lot of field men and women and house ser- 
vants, three cooks, a carpenter and a fine buggy 
horse, and a saddle-horse and carryall. Call and 
eee. . Tnos. G. James. 

Daily Orleanian, Oct. 19, 1852 : 

AV. F. TANXEHILL, 

No. 159 Gravier Street. 
SLAVES! SLAVES! SLAVES! 
Constantly on hand, bought and sold on com- 
mission, at most reasonable prices. — Field hands, 
cooks, washers and ironers, and general house 
servants. City reference given, if required. 
oct U 

DEPOT D'ESCIAVES 

DE LA NO UVELLE- ORLEANS. 
No. 68, rue Baronne. 

Wm. F. Tannehill & Co. ont constamment en 
mains un assortiment complet d'ESCLAVES bien 
choisis a vendre. Aussi, vente et achat d'esclaves 
par commission. 

Nous avons actuellement en mains un grand 
nombre de xegres a louer aux mois, parmi lesquels 
s€ trouvent des jeunes garcons, domestiques de 
maieon, cuisinieres, hlanchisseuses et repas- 
seuses, nourices, etc. 

REFERENCES : 

Wright, Williams & Co. Moon, Titus & Co. 
Williams, Phillips & Co. S. 0. Nelson & Co. 
Moses Greenwood. E. W. Diggs. 3ms 

Neio Orleans Daily Crescent, Oct. 21, 
1852 : 

SLAVES. 

James White, No. 73 Baronne street, New Or- 
leans, will give strict attention to receiving, board- 
ing; and selling SLAVES consigned to him. He 
will also buy and sell on commission. References : 
Messrs. Robson & Allen, McRea, Coffman & Co., 
Pre gram, Bryan & Co. sep 23 

NEGROES WANTED. 

Fifteen or twenty good Ne^ro Men wanted to 
go on a Plantation. The best of wages will be 
given nntil the first of January, 1853. 

Apply to Thomas G. Mackev & Co., 

5 Canal street, corner of Magazine, 
oepll up stairs. 



147 

From another number of the Mississippi 
Free Trader is taken the following : 

NEGROES. 

The undersigned would respectfully state to the 
public that he has a lot of about forty-five now 
on hand, having this day received a lot of twenty- 
five direct from Virginia, two or three good cooks, 
a carriage driver, a good house boy, a ficldk r, a 
fine seamstress and a likely lot of field men and 
women ; all of whom he w'ill sell at a small profit. 
He wishes to close out and go on to Virginia 
after a lot for the fall trade. Call and see. 

Thomas G. James. 

The slave-raising business of the northern 
states has been variously alluded to and re- 
cognized, both in the business statistics of 
the states, and occasionally in the speeches 
of patriotic men, who have justly mourned 
over it as a degradation to their country. In 
1841, the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery 
Society addressed to the executive com- 
mittee of the American Anti-Slavery Society 
some inquiries on the internal American 
slave-trade. 

A labored investigation was made at" that 
time, the results of which were published in 
London ; and from that volume are made the 
following extracts : 

The Virginia Times (a weekly newspaper, 
published at Wheeling, Virginia) estimates, in 
1836, the number of slaves exported for sale from 
that state alone, during " the twelve months pre- 
ceding," at forty thousand, the aggregate value 
of whom is computed at twenty-four millions of 
dollars. 

Allowing for Virginia one-half of the whole ex 
portation during the period in question, and we 
have the appalling sum total of eighty thousand 
slaves exported in a single year from the breeding 
states. _ We cannot decide with certainty what 
proportion of the above number was furnished by 
each of the breeding states, but Maryland ranks 
next to Virginia in point of numbers, 'North Caro- 
lina follows Maryland, Kentucky North Carolina, 
then Tennessee and Delaware. 

The Natchez (Mississippi) Courier says " that 
the States of Louisiana, Mississippi. Alabama 
and Arkansas, imported two hundred and fifty thou- 
sand slaves from the more northern states in the 
year 1836." 

This seems absolutely incredible, but it proba- 
bly includes all the slaves introduced by the im- 
migration of their masters. .The following, from 
the Virginia Times, confirms this supposition. 
In the same paragraph which is referred to under 
the second query, it is said : 

" We have heard intelligent men estimate the 
number of slaves exported from Virginia, within 
the last twelve months, at a hundred and twenty 
thousand, each slave averaging at least six 
hundred dollars, making an aggregate of seventy- 
two million dollars. Of the number of slaves 
exported, not more than one-third have been sold ; 
the others having been carried by their masters, 
who have removed." 

Assuming one-third to be the proportion of the 



148 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



sold, there are more than eighty thousand im- 
ported for sale into the four States of Louisiana, 
Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas. Supposing 
one-half of eighty thousand to be sold into the 
other buying states, — S. Carolina, Georgia, and 
the territory of Florida, — and we are brought to 
the conclusion that more than a hundred and 
twenty thousand slaves were, for some years pre- 
vious to the great pecuniary pressure in 1837, ex- 
ported from the breeding to the consuming states. 

The Baltimore American gives the following 
from a Mississippi paper of 1837 : 

" The report made by the committee of the 
citizens of Mobile, appointed at their meeting 
held on the 1st instant, on the subject of the ex- 
isting pecuniary pressure, states that so large 
has been the return of slave labor, that purchases 
by Alabama of that species of property from 
other states, since 1833, have amounted to about 
ten million dollars annually." 

" Dealing in slaves," says the Baltimore (Mary- 
land) Register of 1829, has become a large busi- 
ness ; establishments are made in several places 
in Maryland and Virginia, at which they are sold 
like cattle. These places of deposit are strongly 
built, and well supplied with iron thumbscrews 
and gags, and ornamented with cowskins and 
other whips, oftentimes bloody." 

Professor Dew, now President of the University 
of William and Mary, in Virginia, in his review 
of the debate in the Virginia legislature in 1831 — 
2, says (p. 120) : 

" A full equivalent being left in the place of the 
slave (the purchase-money), this emigration be- 
comes an advantage to the state, and does not 
check the black population as much as at first 
view we might imagine ; because it furnishes 
every inducement to the master to attend to the 
negroes, to encourage breeding, and to cause the 
greatest number possible to be raised.' 1 '' Again : 
" Virginia is } in fact, a negro-raising slate for the 
other stales.'''' 

Mr. Goode,of Virginia, in his speech before the 
Virginia legislature, in January, 1832, said : 

" The superior usefulness of the slaves in the 
South will constitute an effectual demand, which 
will remove them from our limits. We shall send 
them from our state, because it will be our interest 
to do so. But gentlemen are alarmed lest the mar- 
kets of other states be closed against the introduction 
of our slaves. Sir, the demand for slave labor 
must increase" <5fc. 

In the debates of the Virginia Convention, in 
l c 2.), Judge Upshur said : 

" The value of slaves as an article of property 
depends much on the state of the market abroad. 
In this view, it is the value of land abroad, and not 
of land here, which furnishes the ratio. Nothing 
is more fluctuating than the value of slaves. A 
late law of Louisiana reduced their value twenty- 
five per cent, in two hours after its passage was 
known. If it should be our lot, as I trust it will 
be, to a *, Jre the country of Texas, their price will 
rise again." 

Hon. Philip Doddridge, of Virginia, in his 
speech in the Virginia Convention, in 1829 (De- 
bates p. 8'J), said : 

' The acquisition of Texas will greatly enhance 
the ralue of the property in question (Virginia 
slaves)." 

Rev. I>r. Graham, of Fayetteville, North Caro- 
lina, at a Colonization meeting held at that place 
in the fall of 1837, said : 



"There were nearly seven thousand slaves 
offered in New Orleans market, last winter. From 
Virginia alone six thousand were annually sent to 
the South, and from Virginia and North Carolina 
there had gone to the South, in the last twenty 
years, three hundred thousand slaves." 

Hon. Henry Clay, of Kentucky, in his speech 
before the Colonization Society, in 1829, says : 

"It is believed that nowhere in the farming 
portion of the United States would slave labor he 
generally employed, if the proprietor were not 
tempted to raise slaves by the high price of the 
southern markets, which keeps it up in his own." 

The New York Journal of Commerce of Octo- 
ber 12th, 1835, contains a letter from a Virginian, 
whom the editor calls " a very good and sensible 
man," asserting that twenty thousand slaves had 
been driven to the South from Virginia that year, 
but little more than three-fourths of which had 
then elapsed. 

Mr. Gholson, of Virginia, in his speech in the 
legislature of that state, January 18, 1831 (sea 
Richmond Whig) , says : 

" It has always (perhaps erroneously) been 
considered, by steady and old-fashioned people, 
that the owner of land had a reasonable right to 
its annual profits ; the owner of orchards to their 
annual fruits ; the owner of brood mares to their 
product ; and the owner of female slaves to their 
increase. We have not the fine-spun intelligence 
nor legal acumen to discover the technical dis- 
tinctions drawn by gentlemen (that is, the distinc- 
tion between female slaves and brood mares). The 
legal maxim of partus sequitur ventrem is coeval 
with the existence of the right of property itself, 
and is founded in wisdom and justice. It is on the 
justice and inviolability of this maxim that the 
master foregoes the service of the female slave, 
has her nursed and attended during the period of 
her gestation, and raises the helpless infant off- 
spring. The value of the property justifies the ex- 
pense, and I do not hesitate to say that in its in- 
crease consists much of our wealth.'''' 

Can any comment on the state of public 
sentiment produced by slavery equal the 
simple reading of this extract, if we re- 
member that it was spoken in the Virginia 
legislature? One would think the §old 
cheek of Washington would redden in its 
grave for shame, that his native state had 
sunk, so low. That there were Virginian 
hearts to feel this disgrace is evident from 
the following reply of Mr. Faulkner to Mr. 
Gholson, in the Virginia House of Dele- 
gates, 1832. See Richmond Whig : 

" But ho (Mr. Gholson) has labored to show 
that the abolition of slavery would be impolitic, 
because your slaves constitute the entire wealth 
of the state, all the productive capacity Virginia 
possesses ; and, sir, as things are, / believe he is 
correct. He says that the slaves constitute the 
entire available wealth of Eastern Virginia. Is 
it true that for two hundred years the only in- 
crease in the wealth and resources of Virginia 
has been a remnant of the natural increase of 
this miserable race ? Can it be that on this 
increase she places her sole dependence ? Until I 
heard these declarations, I had not fully conceived 
the horrible extent of this evil These gen- 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 



149 






tlemen state the fact, which the history and 
present aspect of the commonwealth but too well 
sustain. What, sir! have you lived for two hun- 
dred years without personal effort or productive 
industry, in extravagance and indolence, sustained 
alone by the return from the sales of the in- 
crease of slaves, and retaining merely such a 
number as your now impoverished lands can 
sustain as stock ?" 

Mr. Thomas Jefferson Randolph in the Virginia 
legislature used the following language [Liberty 
Bell, p. 20) : 

" I agree with gentlemen in the necessity of 
arming the state for internal defence. I will unite 
witli them in any effort to restore confidence to 
the public mind, and to conduce to the sense of 
the safety of our wives and our children. Yet, 
sir, I must ask upon whom is to fall the burden 
of this defence! Not upon the lordly masters of 
their hundred slaves, who will never turn out except 
to retire with their families when danger threatens. 
No, sir; it is to fall upon the less wealthy class of 
our citizens, chiefly upon the non-slaveholder. I 
have known patrols turned out where there ivas not 
a slave-holder among them ; and this is the practice 
of the country. I have slept in times of alarm 
quiet in bed, without having a thought of care, 
while these individuals, owning none of this prop- 
erty themselves, were patrolling under a compul- 
sory process, for a pittance of seventy-five cents 
per twelve hours, the very curtilage of my house, 
and guarding that property which was alike dan- 
gerous to them and myself. After all, this is but 
an expedient. As this population becomes more 
numerous, it becomes less productive. Your 
guard must be increased, until finally its profits 
will not pay for the expense of its subjection. 
Slavery has the effect of lessening the free popu- 
lation of a country. 

" The gentleman has spoken of the increase of 
the female slaves being a part of the profit. It is 
admitted ; but no great evil can be averted, no 
good attained, without some inconvenience. It 
may be questioned how far it is desirable to foster 
and encourage this branch of profit. It is a prac- 
tice, and an increasing practice, in parts of Vir- 
ginia, to rear slaves for market. How can an 
honorable mind, a patriot, and a lover of his 
country, bear to see this Ancient Dominion, ren- 
dered illustrious by the noble devotion and patri- 
otism of her sons in the. cause of liberty, con- 
verted into one grand menagerie, where men are to 
reared for the market, like oxen for the shambles'? 
Is it better, is it not worse, than the slave-trade ; — 
that trade which enlisted the labor of the good 
and wise of every creed, and every clime, to 
abolish it? The trader receives the slave, a 
stranger in language, aspect and manners, from 
the merchant who has brought him from the in- 
terior The ties of father, mother, husband and 
child, have all been rent in twain ; before he re- 
ceives him, his soul lias become callous. But 
here, sir, individuals whom the master has known 
from infancy, whom he has seen sporting in the 
innocent gambols of childhood, who have been 
accustomed to look to him for protection, he tears 
from the mother's arms, and sells into a strange 
country, among strange people, subject to cruel 
task m asters. 

"lie has attempted to justify slavery here be- 
cause it exists in Africa, and has stated that it 
exists all o»er the world. Upon the same prin- 
ciple, he could justify Mahometanism, with its 



plurality of wives, petty wars for plunder, rob- 
bery and murder, or any other of the abomina- 
tions and enormities of savage tribes. Does slav- 
ery exist in any part of civilized Europe ? — No, 
sir, in no part of it." 

The calculations in the volume from which 
we have been quoting were made in the year 
1841. Since that time, the area of the 
southern slave-market has been doubled, and 
the trade has undergone a proportional in- 
crease. Southern papers are full of its ad- 
vertisements. It is, in fact, the great trade 
of the country. From the single port of 
Baltimore, in the last two years, a thousand 
and thirty-three slaves have been shipped to 
the southern market, as is apparent from 
the following report of the custom-house 
officer : 

ABSTRACT OF THE NUMBER OF VESSELS CLEARED m 
THE DISTRICT OF BALTIMORE FOR SOUTHERN PORTS, 
HAVING SLAVES ON BOARD, FROM JAN. 1, 1851, TO 
NOVEMBER 20, 1852. 



Due 


Denomina's 


Names of Vessels. 


Where B und. 


Nos. 


1851 










Jan. 6 


Sloop, 


Georgia, 


Norfolk, Va. 


16 


" 10 


" 


" 


J 


6 


" 11 


Bark, 


Elizabeth, 


New Orleans. 


92 


" 14 


Sloop, 


Georgia, 


Norfolk, Va. 


. 9 


" 17 


" 


" 


" 


6 


" 20 


Bark, 


Cora, 


New Orleans. 


14 


Feb. 6 


" 


E. H. Chapin, 


" 


SI 


" 8 


" 


Sarah Bridge, 


" 


34 


" 12 


Sloop, 


Georgia, 


Norfolk, Va, 


5 


" 24 


Schooner, 


II. A. Darling, 


New Orleans. 


37 


" 26 


Sloop, 


Georgia, 


Norfolk, Va. 


3 


" 28 


" 


" 


" 


42 


Mar. 10 


Ship, 


Edward Everett, 


New Orleans. 


20 


" 21 


Sloop,-^ 


Georgia, 


Norfolk, Va. 


11 


" 10 


Bark, 


Baltimore, 


Savannah. 


13 


Apr. 1 


Sloop, 


Ik-raid, 


Norfolk, Va. 


7 


" 2 


Brig, 


Waverley, 


New Orleans. 


31 


" 18 


Sloop, 


Baltimore, 


Arquia Creek, Va. 


4 


" 23 


Ship, 


Charles, 


New Orleans. 


25 


" 28 


Sloop, 


Georgia, 


Norfolk, Va. 


5 


May 15 


" 


Herald, 


" 


2? 


" 17 


Schooner, 


Brilliant, 


Charleston. 


1 


June 10 


Sloop, 


Herald, 


Norfolk, Va. 


3 


" 16 


" 


Georgia, 


" 


4 


" 20 


Schooner, 


Truth, 


Charleston. 


5 


" 21 


Ship, 


Herman, 


New Orleans. 


10 


July 19 


Schooner, 


Aurora S., 


Charleston. 


1 


Sept. 6 


Bark, 


Kirkwood, 


New Orleans. 


2 


Oct. 4 


" 


Abbott Lord, 


" 


1 


" 11 


" 


Elizabeth, 


" 


70 


" 18 


Ship, 


Edward Everett, 


" 


12 


Oct. 20 


Sloop, 


Georgia, 


Norfolk, Va. 


1 


Nov. 13 


Ship, 


Eliza V. Mason, 


New Orleans. 


57 


" 18 


Bark, 


Mary Broughtons, 


" 


47 


Dec. 4 


Ship, 


Timalean, 


" 


22 


" 18 


Schooner, 


11. A. Barling, 


« 


45 


1852. 










Jan. 5 


Bark, 


Southerner, 


" 


52 


Feb. 7 


Ship, 


Nathan Hooper, 


" 


51 


" 21 


" 


Dumbarton, 


" 


22 


Mar. 27 


Sloop, 


Palmetto, 


Charleston. 


36 


" 4 


" 


Jewess, 


Norfolk, Va. 


34 


Apr. 24 


" 


Palmetto, 


Charleston. 


3 


•' 25 


Bark, 


Abbott Lord, 


New Orleans. 


36 


May 15 


Ship, 


Charles, 


" 


2 


June 12 


Sloop, 


Pampero, 


" 


4 


July 3 


" 


Palmetto, 


Charleston. 


1 


" 6 


" 


Herald, 


Norfolk, Va. 


7 


" 6 


" 


Maryland, 


Arquia Crick, Va. 


4 


Sept. 14 


" 


North Carolina, 


Norfolk, Va. 


15 


" 23 


Ship, 


America, 


New Orleans. 


1 


Oct. 15 


" 


Brandy wine, 


" 


6 


" 18 


Sloop, 


Isabel' 


Charleston. 


1 


' 28 


Schooner, 


.Maryland, 


" 


12 


" 29 


" 


11. M. (iambrill, 


Savannah. 


n 


Nov. 1 


Ship, 


.lane Henderson, 


New Orleans. 


18 


" 6 


Sloop, 


Palmetto, 


Charleston. 


3 

1033 



150 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



If we look back to the advertisements, we 
shall see that the traders take only the 
younger ones, between the ages of ten and 
thirty. But this is only one port, and only 
one mode of exporting ; for multitudes of 
them are sent in coffles over land ■ d yet 
Mr. J. Thornton Randolph represents the 
negroes of Virginia as living in pastoral 
security, smoking their pipes under their 
own vines and fig-trees, the venerable pa- 
triarch of the flock declaring that "he neb- 
ber hab hear such a ting as a nigger sold to 
Georgia all his life, unless dat nigger did 
someting very bad." 

An affecting picture of the consequences 
of this traffic upon both master and slave is 
drawn by the committee of the volume from 
which we have quoted. 

The writer cannot conclude this chapter 
better than by the language which they 
have used. 

This system bears with extreme severity upon 
the slave. It subjects him to a perpetual fear of 
being sold to the " soul-driver," which to the 
slave is the realization of all conceivable woes and 
horrors, more dreaded than death. An awful ap- 
prehension of this fate haunts the poor sufferer by 
day and by night, from his cradle to his grave. 
Suspense hangs like a thunder-cloud over his head. 
He knows that there is not a passing hour, wheth- 
er he wakes or sleeps, which may not be the 
last that he shall spend with his wife and chil- 
dren. Every day or week some acquaintance is 
snatched from his side, and thus the consciousness 
of his own danger is kept continually awake. 
"Surely my turn will come next," is his harrow- 
ing conviction ; for he knows that he was reared 
for this, as the ox for the yoke, or the sheep for 
the slaughter. In this aspect, the slave's condi- 
tion is truly indescribable. Suspense, even when 
it relates to an event of no great moment, and 
" endureth but for a night," is hard to bear. But 
A'hen it broods over all, absolutely all that is dear, 
■"hilling the present with its deep shade, and cast- 
ing its awful gloom over the future, it must break 
the heart ! Such is the suspense under which 
every slave in the breeding states lives. It poisons 
all his little lot of bliss. If a father, he canhot 
go forth to his toil without bidding a mental fare- 
well to his wife and children. He cannot return, 
weary and worn, from the field, with any certainty 
that he shall not find his home robbed and desolate. 
Nor can he seek his bod of straw and rags with- 
out the frightful misgiving that his wife may be 
torn from his arms before morning. Should a 
white stranger approach his master's mansion, he 
fears that the soul-driver has come, and awaits in 
terror the overseer's mandate, " You are sold ; fol- 
low that man." There is no being on earth whom 
the slaves of the breeding states regard with so 
much horror as the trader. He is to them what 
tin prowling kidnapper is to their less wretched 
brethren in the wilds of Africa. The master knows 
this, and that there is no punishment so effectual 
to secure labor, or deter from misconduct, as the 
threat of being delivered to the soul-driver.* 



* This horribly expressive appellation is in common 
use among tho slaves of the breeding states. 



Another consequence of this system is the prev- 
alence of licentiousness. This is indeed one of the 
foul features of slavery everywhere ; but it is espe- 
cially prevalent and indiscriminate where slave- 
breeding is conducted as a business. It grows di- 
rectly out of the system, and is inseparable from it. 
* * * The pecuniary inducement to general pol- 
lution must be very strong, since the larger the slave 
increase the greater the master's gains, and espe- 
cially since the mixed blood demands a considerably 
higher price than the pure black. 

The remainder of the extract contains spe- 
cifications too dreadful to be quoted. We can 
only refer the reader to the volume, p. 13. 

The poets of America, true to the holy 
soul of their divine art, have shed over some 
of the horrid realities of this trade the 
pathetic light of poetry. Longfellow and 
Whittier have told us, in verses beautiful as 
strung pearls, yet sorrowful as a mother's 
tears, some of the incidents of this unnatural 
and ghastly traffic. For the sake of a com- 
mon humanity, let us hope that the first ex- 
tract describes no common event. 

THE QUADROON GIRL. 

The Slaver in the broad lagoon 

Lay moored with idle sail : 
He waited for the rising moon, 

And for the evening gale. 

Under the shore his boat was tied 

And all her listless crew 
Watched the gray alligator slide 

Into the still bayou. 

Odors of orange-flowers and spice 
Iteached them, from time to time, 

Like airs that breathe from Paradise 
Upon a world of crime. 

The Planter, under his roof of thatch, 
Smoked thoughtfully and slow ; 

The Slaver's thumb was on the latch, 
He seemed in haste to go. 

He said, " My ship at anchor rides 

In yonder broad lagoon ; 
I only wait the evening tides, 

And the rising of the moon." 

Before them, with her face upraised, 

In timid attitude, 
Like one half curious, half amazed, 

A Quadroon maiden stood. 

Her eyes were largo, and full of light, 
Her arms and neck were bare ; 

No garment sho wore, savo a kirtle bright, 
And her own long raven hair. 

And on hor lips there played a smile 

As holy, meek, and faint, 
As lights in some cathedral aislo 

The features of a saint. 

" The soil is barren, the farm is old," 
The thoughtful Planter said ; 

Then looked upon the Slaver's gold, 
And then upon the maid. 

His heart within him was at strifo 

With such accursed gains ; 
For he knew whoso passions gave her life, 

Whoso blood ran in hor veins. 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



151 



But the voice of nature was too weak ; 

He took the glittering gold • 
Then (tale as death grew the maiden's cheek, 

Her hands as icy cold. 

The Slaver led her from the door, 

He Led her hy the hand, 
To be his slave and paramour 

In a strange and distant land ! 



THE FAREWELL 



OF A \ 'R.GINIA SLAVE MOTHER TO HER DAUGHTERS, SOLD INTO 
SOUTHERN BONDAGE. 

Gone, gone, — sold and gone, 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone. 
Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings, 
Where the noisome insect stings, 
Where the fever demon strews 
Poison with the falling dews, 
Where the sickly sunbeams glare 
Through the hot and misty air, — 
Gone, gone, — sold and gone, 
To the rice swamp dank and lone, 
From Virginia's hills and waters, — 
Woe is me, my stolen daughters ! 

Gone, gone, — sold and gone, 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone. 
There no mother's eye is near them, 
There no mother's ear can hear them ; 
Never, when the torturing lash 
Seams their back with many a gash, 
Shall a mother's kindness bless them, 
Or a mother's arms caress them. 
Gone, gone, &c. 

Gone, gone, — sold and gone, 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone. 
0, when weary, sad, and slow, 
From the fields at night they go, 
Faint with toil, and racked with pain, 
To their cheerless homes again, — 
There no brother's voice shall greet them, 
There no father's welcome meet them. 
Gone, gone, <fcc. 

Gone, gone, — sold and gone, 

To the rice-swamp dank and lone. 

From the tree whose shadow lay 
On their childhood's place of play ; 

From- the cool spring where they drank ; 

Rock, and hill, and rivulet bank ; 

From the solemn house of prayer, 

And the holy counsels there, — 
Gone, gone, &e. 

Gone, gone, — sold and gone, 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone ; 
Toiling through the weary day, 
And at night the spoiler's prey. 
0, that they had earlier died, 
Sleeping calmly, side by side, 
Where the tyrant's power is o'er, 
And the fetter galls no more ! 
Gone, gone, &e. 

Gone, gone, — sold and gone, 
To the rice -swamp dank and lone. 
By the holy love He beareth, 
By the bruised reed He spareth, 
0, may He, to whom alone 
All their cruel wrongs are known, 
Still their hope and refuge prove, 
With a more than mother's love ! 
Gone, gone, &o. 

John G. TYhittier. 



The following extract from a letter of 
Dr. Bailey, in the Era, 1847, presents a view 
of this subject more creditable to some Vir- 
ginia families. May the number that refuse 



to part with slaves except by emancipation 



The stile of slaves to the south is carried to a 
great extent. The slave-holders do not, so far as 
I can learn, raise them for that special purpose. 
But, here is a man with a score of slaves, located 
on an exhausted plantation. It must furnish sup- 
port for all ; but, while they increase, its capacity 
of supply decreases. The result is, he must eman- 
cipate or sell. But he has fallen into debt, and 
he sells to relieve himself from debt, and also from 
an excess of mouths. Or, he requires money to 
educate his children ; or, his negroes are sold un- 
der execution. From these and other causes, large 
numbers of slaves are continually disappearing 
from the state, so that the next census will un- 
doubtedly show a marked diminution of the slave 
population. 

The season for this trade is generally from No- 
vember to April ; and some estimate that the aver- 
age number of slaves passing by the southern 
railroad weekly, during that period of six months, 
is at least two hundred. A slave-trader told me 
that he had known one hundred pass in a single 
night. But this is only one route. Large num- 
bers are sent off westwardly, and also by sea, 
coastwise. The Davises, in Petersburg, are the 
great slave-dealers. They are Jews, who came to 
that place many years ago as poor pedlers ; and, 
I am informed, are members of a family which 
has its representatives in Philadelphia, New York, 
&c. ! These men are always in the market, giv- 
ing the highest'price for slaves. During the sum- 
mer and fall they buy them up at low prices, trim, 
shave, wash them, fatten them so that they may 
look sleek, and sell them to great profit. It might 
not be unprofitable to inquire how much North- 
ern capital, and what firms in some of the North- 
ern cities, are connected with this detestable 
business. 

There are many planters here who cannot be 
persuaded to sell their slaves. They have far 
inore than they can find work for, and could at 
any time obtain a high price for them. The tempt- 
ation is strong, for they want more money and 
fewer dependants. But they resist it, and noth- 
ing can induce them to part with a single slave, 
though they know that they would be greatly the 
gainers in a pecuniary sense, were they to sell 
one-half of them. Such men are too good to be 
slave-holders. Would that they might see it their 
diity to go one step further, and become emanci- 
pators ! The majority of this class of planters 
are religious men, and this is the class to which 
generally are to be referred the various cases of 
emancipation by will, of which from time to time 
we hear accounts. 



CHAPTER V. 



OR 



SELECT INCIDENTS OF LAWFUL TRADE, 
FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 

The atrocious and sacrilegious system of 
breeding human beings for sale, and trading 
them like cattle in the market, fails to pro- 
duce the impression on the mind that it 
ought to produce, because it is lost in 
generalities. 



152 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



It is like the account of a great battle, in 
which we learn, in round numbers, that ten 
thousand Avere killed and wounded, and 
throw the paper by without a thought. 

So, when we read of sixty or eighty thou- 
sand human beings being raised yearly and 
sold in the market, it passes through our 
mind, but leaves no definite trace. 

Sterne says that when he would realize 
the miseries of captivity, he had to turn his 
mind from the idea of hundreds of thousands 
languishing in dungeons, and bring before 
himself the picture of one poor, solitary cap- 
tive pining in his cell. In like manner, we 
cannot give any idea of the horribly cruel 
and demoralizing effect of this trade, except 
by presenting facts in detail, each fact being 
a specimen of a class of facts. 

For a specimen of the public sentiment 
and the kind of morals and manners which 
this breeding and trading system produces, 
both in slaves and in their owners, the writer 
gives the following extracts from a recent 
letter of a friend in one of the Southern 
States. 



Dear Mrs. S: — The sable goddess who pre- 
sides over our bed and wash-stand Is such a queer 
specimen of her race, that I would give a good 
deal to have you see her. Her whole appear- 
ance, as she goes giggling and curtseying about, 
is perfectly comical, and would lead a stranger to 
think her really deficient in intellect. This is, 
however, by no means the case. During our two 
months' acquaintance with her, we have seen 
many indications of sterling good sense, that 
would do credit to many a white person with ten 
times her advantages. 

She is disposed to be very communicative ; — 
seems to feel that she has a claim upon our sym- 
pathy, in the very fact that we come from the 
North ; and we could undoubtedly gain no little 
knowledge of the practical workings of the "pe- 
culiar institution," if we thought proper to hold 
any protracted conversation with her. This, how- 
ever, would insure a visit from the authorities, 
requesting us to leave town in the next train of 
cars ; so we are forced to content ourselves with 
gleaning a few items, now and then, taking care 
to appear quite indifferent to her story, and to cut 
it short by despatching her on some trifling er- 
rand ; — being equally careful, however, to note 
down her peculiar expressions, as soon as she has 
disppeared. A copy of theso I have thought you 
would like to see, especially as illustrating the 
views of the marriage institution which is a neces- 
sary result of the great human property relation 
system. 

A Southern lady, who thinks "negro senti- 
ment" very much exaggerated in " Uncle Tom's 
( Jabin," assures us that domestic attachments can- 
not be very strong, where one man will have two 
or three wives and families, on as many different 
plantations. (!) And the lady of our hotel tells us 
of her cook having received a message from her 
husband, that he has another wife, and she may 
get another husband, with perfect indifference ; 



simply expressing a hope that " she won't find 
another here during the next month, as she must 
then be sent to her owner, in Georgia, and would 
be more unwilling to go." And yet, botli of these 
ladies are quite religious, and highly resent any 
insinuation that the moral character of the slaves 
is not far above that of the free negroes at the 
North. 

With Violet's story, I will also enclose that of 
one of our waiters ; in which, I think, you will be 
interested. 

Violet's father and mother both died, as she 
says, " 'fore I had any sense," leaving eleven 
children — all scattered. " To sabe my life, Missis, 
couldn't tell dis yer night where one of dem is. 
Massa lib in Charleston. My first husband, — 
when we was young, — nice man ; he had seven 
children ; den he sold off to Florida — neber hear 
from him 'gain. Ole folks die. 0, dat's be my 
bodcration, Missis, — when ole people be dead , den 
we be scattered all 'bout. Den I sold up here — 
now hab 'noder husband — hab four children up 
here. I lib bery easy when my young husband 
'libe — and we had children bery fast. But now 
dese yer ones tight fellers. Massa don't 'low us 
to raise noting; no pig — no goat — no dog — 
no noting ; won't allow us raise a bit of corn. 
We has to do jist de best we can. Dey don't gib ua 
a single grain but jist two homespun frocks — no 
coat 'tall. 

" Can't go to meetin, 'cause, Missis, get dis 
work done — den get dinner. In summer, I goes 
ebery Sunday ebening ; but dese yer short days, 
time done get dinner dishes washed, den time get 
supper. Gen'lly goes Baptist church." 
" Do your people usually go there ?" 
" Dere bees tree shares ob dem — Methodist 
gang, Baptist gang, Tiscopal gang. _ Last sum- 
mer, use to hab right smart* meetins in our yard, 
Sunday night. Massa Johnson preach to us. Den 
he said couldn't hab two meetins — we might go 
to church." 
" Whyl" 

" Gracious knows. I lubs to go to meetin 
allers — 'specially when dere 's good preaching — 
lubs to hab people talk good to me — likes to hab 
people read to me, too. 'Cause don't b'long to 
church, no reason why I shan't." 

" Does your master like to have others read to 
you ? " 

"He won't hinder — I an't bound tell him 
when folks reads to me. I hab my soul to sabe — 
he hab his soul to sabe. Our owners won't stand 
few minutes and read to us — dey tink it too great 
honor — dey 's bery hard on us. Brack preachers 
sometimes talk good to us, and pray wid us, — 
and pray a heap for dem too. 

" 1 jest done hab great quarrel wid Dinah, down 
in de kitchen. I tells Dinah, ' De way you goes 
on spile all de women's character.' — She say she 
didn't care, she do what she please wid herself. 
Dinah, she slip away somehow from her first hus- 
band, and hab 'noder child by Sambo (lie b'long 
to Massa D.) ; so she and her first husband dey 
fall out somehow. Dese yer men, yer know, is so 
queer, Missis, dey don't neber like sich tings. _ 

" Ye know, Missis, tings we lub, we don't like 
hab anybody else hab 'em. Such a ting as dat, 
Missis, tetch your heart so, ef you don't mind, 
't will fret you almost to death. Ef my husband 



* Right smart of— that is, a groat many of — an idiom 
of Anglo-Ethiopia. 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



153 



was to slip away from me, Missis, dat ar way, it ud 
wake me right up. I 'm brack, but I would n't do 
so to my husband, neider. What I hide behind 
de curtain now, I can't hide it behind de curtain 
when 1 stand before God — de whole world know 
it den. 

" Dinah's (second) husband say what she do 
for her first husband noting to him; — now, my 
husband don't feel so. He say he wouldn't do as 
Daniel do — he wouldn't buy tings for de oder 
children — dem as has de children might buy de 
tings for dem. Well, so dere dey is. — Dinah's 
first husband come up wheneber he can, to see 
his children, — and Sambo, he come up to see his 
child, and gib Dinah tings for it. 

" You know, Missis, Massa hab no nigger but 
me and one yellow girl, when he bought me and 
my four children. Well, den Massa, he want me 
to breed ; so he say, ' Violet, you must take some 
nigger here in C 

'• Den I say, ' No, Massa, I can't take any here.' 
Den he say, 'You must, Violet ;' 'cause you see 
he want me breed for him ; so he say plenty 
young fellers here, but I say I can't hab any ob 
dem. Well, den, Missis, he go down Virginia, 
and he bring up two niggers, — and dey was 
pretty ole men, — and Missis say, ' One of dem 's 
for you, Violet;' but 1 say, 'No, Missis, I can't 
take one of dem, 'cause I don't lub 'em, and I 
can't hab one I don't lub.' Den Massa, he say, 
' You must take one of dese — and den, cf you can't 
lub him, you must find somebody else you can tub.' 
Den I say, ' 0, no, Massa ! I can't do dat — 1 can't 
hab one ebery day.' Well, den, by-and-by, Massa 
he buy tree more, and den Missis say, ' Now, Vio- 
let, ones dem is for you.' I say, 'I do'no — 
maybe I can't lub one dem neider;' but she say, 
' You must hab one ob dese.' Well, so Sam and I 
we lib along two year — he watchin my ways, 
and i watchin his ways. 

"At last, one night, we was standin' by de 
wood-pile togeder, and de moon bery shine, and 
I do'no how 't was, Missis, he answer me, he 
wan't a wife, but he did n't know where he got 
one. I say, plenty girls in G. He say, ' Yes — 
but maybe I shan't find any I like so well as 
you.' Den I say maybe he wouldn't like my 
ways, 'cause I 'se an ole woman, and I hab four 
childreu by my first husband ; and anybody marry 
me, must be jest kind to dem children as dey was 
to me, else I couldn't lub him. Den he say, ' Ef 
he had a woman 't had children,' — mind you, he 
did n't say me, — ' he would be jest as kind to de 
children as he was to de moder, and dat 's 'cordin 
to how she dc by him.' Well, so we went on 
from one ting to anoder, till at last we say we'd 
take one anoder, and so we 've libed togeder eber 
Bince — and I 's had four children by him — and 
he neber slip away from me, nor I from him." 

" How are you married in your yard ?" 

" We jest takes one anoder — we asks de white 
folks' leave — and den takes one anoder. Some 
folks, dey 's married by de book ; but den, what 's 
de use 1 Dere 's my fus husband, we 'se married 
by de book, and he sold way off to Florida, and 
I 's here. Dey wants to do what dey please wid 
us, so dey don't want us to be married. Dey 
don't care what we does, so we jest makes money 
for dem. 

"My fus husband, — he yiung, and he bery 
kind to me, — 0, Missis, he bei y kind indeed. He 
set uj) all night and work, so as to make me com- 
fortable. 0, we got 'long bery well when I had 



him ; but he sold way off Florida, and, sence 
then, Missis, / jest gone to noting. Dese yer 
white people dey hab here, dey won't 'low us 
noting — noting at all — jest gibs us food, and 
two suits a 3 T ear — a broad stripe and a narrow 
stripe ; you '11 see 'em, Missis." — 

And we did " see 'em ;" for Violet brought us 
the " narrow stripe," with a request that we 
would fit it for her. There was just enough to 
cover her, but no hooks and eyes, cotton, or 
even lining ; these extras she must get as she 
can ; and yet her master receives from our host 
eight dollars per month for her services. We 
asked how she got the " broad stripe" made 
up. 

"0, Missis, my husband, — he working now 
out on de farm, — so he hab 'lowance four pounds 
bacon and one peck of meal ebery week ; so he 
stinge heself, so as to gib me four pounds bacon 
to pay for making my frock." [Query. — Are 
there any husbands in refined circles who would 
do more than this 1 ] 

Once, finding us all three busily writing, Violet 
stood for some moments silently watching the 
mysterious motion of our pens, and then, in a 
tone of deepest sadness, said, 

" ! dat be great comfort, Missis. You can 
write to your friends all 'bout ebery ting, and so 
hab dem write to you. Our people can't do so. 
Wheder dey be 'live or dead, we can't neber 
know — only sometimes we hears dey be dead. ' ' 

What more expressive comment on the 
cruel laws that forbid the slave to be 
taught to write ! 

The history of the serving-man is thus 
given : 

George's father and mother belonged to some- 
body in Florida. During the war, two older sis- 
ters got on board an English vessel, and went to 
Halifax. His mother was very anxious to go with 
them, and take the whole family ; but her hus- 
band persuaded her to wait until the next ship 
sailed, when he -thought he should be able to go 
too. By this delay opportunity of escape was 
lost, and the whole family were soon after sold 
for debt. George, one sister, and their mother, 
were bought by the same man. He says, " My 
old boss cry powerful when she (the mother) die ; 
say he 'd rather lost two thousand dollars. She 
was part Indian — hair straight as yourn — and 
she was white as dat ar pillow." George married 
a woman in another yard. He gave this reason 
for it : " 'Cause, when a man sees his wife 'bused, 
he can't help feelin' it. When he hears his wife's 
'bused, 'tan't like as how it is when he sees it. 
Then I can fadge for her better than when she 's 
in my own yard." This wife was sold up coun- 
try, but after some years became " lame and sick 
— could n't do much — so her massa gabe her her 
time, and paid her fare to G." — [The sick and 
infirm are always provided for, you know.] — 
" Hadn't seen her for tree years," said George ; 
" but soon as I heard of it, went right down, — 
hired a house, and got some one to take caro 
ob her, — and used to go to see her ebery tree 
months." He is a mechanic, and worked some- 
times all night to earn money to do this. His 
master asks twenty dollars per month for his ser- 
vices, and allows him fifty cents per week for 
clothes, etc. J. says, if he could only save, by 



154 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 



working nights, money enough to buy liimself, he 
would get s ime one lie could trust to buy him ; 
"den work hard as eber, till I could buy my 
children, den I 'd get away from dis yer." — 

" Where I-'- 1 

" ! Philadelphia — New York — somewhere 
North." 

" Why, you M freeze to death." 

" 0, no, Missis ! I can bear cold. I want to go 
whrre I can buong to myself, and do as I want to." 

The following communication has been 
given to. the writer by Captain Austin 
Bearse, ship-master in Boston. Mr. Bearse 
is a native of Barnstable, Cape Cod. He is 
well known to our Boston citizens and mer- 
chants. 

I am a native of the State of Massachusetts. 
Between the years 1818 and 1830 I was, from time 
to time, mate on board of different vessels engaged 
in the coasting trade on the coast of South Carolina. 

It is well known that many New England ves- 
sels are in the habit of spending their winters on 
the southern coast in pursuit of this business. 
Our vessels used to run up the rivers for the rouo-h 
rice and cotton of the plantations, which we took 
to Charleston. 

We often carried gangs of slaves to the planta- 
tions, as they had been ordered. These slaves were 
generally collected by slave-traders in the slave- 
pens in Charleston, — brought there by various 
causes, such as the death of owners and the division 
of estates, which threw them into the market. Some 
were sent as punishment for insubordination, or 
because the domestic establishment was too large, 
or because persons moving to the North or West 
preferred selling their slaves to the trouble of car- 
rying them. We had on board our vessels, from 
time to time, numbers of these slaves, — sometimes 
two or three, and sometimes as high as seventy or 
eighty. They were separated from their families 
and connections with as little concern as calves and 
pigs are selected out of a lot of domestic animals. 

Our vessels used to lie in a place called Poor 
Man's Hole, not far from the city. We used to 
allow the relations and friends of the slaves to 
come on board and stay all night with their friends, 
before the vessel sailed. 

In the morning it used to be my business to 
pull off the hatches and warn them that it was 
time to separate ; and the shrieks and heart-rend- 
ing cries at these times were enough to make any- 
body's heart ache. 

In the year 1828, while mate of the brig Milton, 
from Boston, hound to New Orleans; the follow- 
ing incident occurred, which I shall never forget : 

The traders brought on board four quadroon 
men in handcuffs, to be stowed away for the New 
( Irleans market. An old negro woman, more than 
eighty years of age, came screaming after them, 
■■ My son, 0, my son. my son !" She seemed almost 
frantic, and when we had got more than a mile 
out in the harbor we heard her screaming yet. 

W hen we got into the Gulf Stream, I came to the 
men, and took off their handcuffs. They were res- 
olute fellows, and they tnld me that I would see 
that they would never live to be slaves in New 
Orleans. One of the men was a carpenter, and one 
a blacksmith. We brought them into New Or- 
leans, and consigned them over to the agent. The 
agenl told the captain afterwards that in forty- 
eight hours after they came to New Orleans they 
were all dead men, having every one killed them- 



selves, as they said they should. One of them, I 
know, was bought for a fireman on the steamer 
Post Boy, that went down to the Balize. He jumped 
over, and was drowned. ' 

The others, — one was sold to a blacksmith, and 
one to a carpenter. The particulars of their deal h 
I did n't know, only that the agent told the captain 
that they were all dead. 

There was a plantation at Coosahatchie, back 
of Charleston, S. C, kept by a widow lady, who 
owned eighty negroes. She sent to Charleston, 
and bought a quadroon girl, very nearly white, for 
her son. We carried her up. She was more 
delicate than our other slaves, so that she was not 
put with them, but was carried up in the cabin. 

I have been on the rice-plantations on the river, 
and seen the cultivation of the rice. In the fall 
of the year, the plantation hands, both mt n and 
women, work all the time above their knees in 
water in the rice-ditches, pulling out the grass, to 
fit the ground for sowing the rice. Hands sold 
here from the city, having been bred mostly to 
house-labor, find this very severe. The plantations 
are so deadly that white people cannot remain on 
them during the summer-time, except at a risk of 
life. The proprietors and their families ai-e there 
only through the winter, and the slaves are left in 
the summer entirely under the care of the over- 
seers. Such overseers as I saw were generally a 
brutal, gambling, drinking set. 

I have seen slavery, in the course of my wander- 
ings, in almost all the countries in the world. I 
have been to Algiers, and seen slavery there. I 
have seen slavery in Smyrna, among the Turks. I 
was in Smyrna when our American consul ransomed 
a beautiful Greek girl in the slave-market. I saw 
her come aboard the brig Suffolk, when she came 
on board to be sent to America for her education. 
I have seen slavery in the Spanish and French 
ports, though I have not been on their plantations. 
My opinion is that American slavery, as 1 have 
seen it in the internal slave-trade, as 1 have seen 
it on the rice and sugar plantations, and in the city 
of New Orleans, is full as bad as slavery in any 
country of the world, heathen or Christian. Peo- 
ple who go for visits or pleasure through the 
Southern States cannot possibly know those things 
which can be seen of slavery by ship-masters 
who run up into the back plantations of coun- 
tries, and who transjaort the slaves and produce of 
plantations. 

In my past days the system of slavery was not 
much discussed. I saw these things as others did, 
without interference. Because I no longer think 
it right to see these things in silence, 1 trade no 
more south of Mason & Dixon's line. 

Austin Bearse. 

The following account was given to the 
writer by Lewis llayden. llayden was a 
fugitive slave, who escaped from Kentucky 
by the assistance of a young lady named 
Delia Webster, and a man named Calvin 
Fairbanks. Both were imprisoned. Lewis 
Hayderi has earned his own character as a 
free citizen of Boston, where he can find 
an abundance of vouchers for his character. 

I belonged to the Rev. Adam Runkin, a Pres- 
byterian minister in Lexington, Kentucky. 

My mother was of mixed blood, — white and 
Indian. She married my father when he was 
working in a bagging factory near by. After a 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



155 



while my father's owner moved off and took my 
father with him, which broke up the marriage. 
She was a very handsome woman. My master 
kept a large dairy, and she was the milk-woman. 
Lexington was a small town in those days, and 
the dairy was in the town. Back of the college 
was the Masonic lodge. A man who belonged to 
the lodge saw my mother when she was about 
her work. He made proposals of a base nature 
to her. When she would have nothing to say to 
him, he told her that she need not be so independ- 
ent, for if money could buy her he would have 
her. My mother told old mistress, and begged 
that master might not sell her. But he did sell 
her. My mother had a high spirit, being part 
Indian. She would not consent to live with this 
man, as he wished ; and he sent her to prison, and 
had her flogged, and punished her in various ways, 
so that at last she began to have crazy turns. When 
I read in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" about Cassy, it 
put me in mind of my mother, and I wanted to 
tell Mrs. S about her. She tried to kill her- 
self several times, once with a knife and once by 
hanging. She had long, straight black hair, but 
after this it all turned white, like an old person's. 
When she had her raving turns she always talked 
about her children. The jailer told the owner 
that if he would let her go to her children, per- 
haps she would get quiet. They let her out one 
time, and she came to the place where we were. 
I might have been seven or eight years old, — 
don't know my age exactly. I was not at home 
when she came. I came in and found her in one 
of the cabins near the kitchen. She sprung and 
caught my arms, and seemed going to break them, 
and then said, " I '11 fix you so they '11 never get 
you !" I screamed, for I thought she was going to 
kill me; they came in and took me away. They tied 
her, and carried her off. Sometimes, when she was 
in her right mind, she used to tell me what things 
they had done to her. At last her owner sold her, 
for a small sum, to a man named Lackey. While 
with him she had another husband and several 
children. After a while this husband either died 
or was sold, I do not remember which. The man 
then sold her to another person, named Bryant. 
My own father's owner now came and lived in the 
neighborhood of this man, and brought my mother 
with him. He had had another wife and family of 
children where he had been living. He and my 
mother came together again, and finished their 
days together. My mother almost recovered her 
mind in her last days. 

I never saw anything in Kentucky which made 
me suppose that ministers or professors of religion 
considered it any more wrong to separate the 
families of slaves by sale than to separate any 
domestic animals. 

There may be ministers and professors of re- 
ligion who think it is wrong, but I never met with 
them. My master was a minister, and yet he 
sold my mother, as I have related. 

When he was going to leave Kentucky for Penn- 
sylvania, he sold all my brothers and sisters at 
auction. I stood by and saw them sold. When 
I was just going up on to the block, he swapped 
me off for a pair of carriage-horses. I looked at 
those horses with strange feelings. I had indulged 
hopes that master would take me into Pennsyl- 
vania with him, and I should get free. How I 
looked at those horses, and walked round them, 
and thought for them I was sold ! 

It was commonly reported that my master had 



said in the pulpit that there was no more harm in 
separating a family of slaves than a litter of pigs. 
I did not hear him say it, and so cannot say 
whether this is true or not. 

It may seem strange, but it is a fact, — I had 
m-ore sympathy and kind advice, in my efforts to get 
my freedom, from gamblers and such sort of men, 
than Christians. Some of the gamblers were very 
kind to me: 

1 never knew a slave-trader that did not seem 
to think, in his heart, that the trade was a bad one. 
I knew a great many of them, such as- Neal, 
McAnn, Cobb, Stone, Pulliam and Davis, & 4 C. 
They were like Haley, — they meant to repent 
when they got through. 

Intelligent colored people in my circle of ac- 
quaintance's a general thing, felt no sccurifi 
ivhatever for their family ties. Some, it is true, 
who belonged to rich families, felt some security . 
lyut those of us who looked deeper, and knew how 
many were not rich that seemed so, and saw how 
fast money slipped away, were always miserable. 
The trader was all around, the slave-pens at 
hand, and we did not know what time any of us 
might be in it. Then there were the rice-swamps, 
and the sugar and cotton plantations ; we had 
had them held before us as terrors, by our masters 
and mistresses, all our lives. We knew about 
them all ; and when a friend was carried off, why, 
it was the same as death, for we could not write 
or hear, and never expected to see them again. 

I have one child who is buried in Kentucky, 
and that grave is pleasant to think of. I 've got 
another that is sold nobody knows where, and that 
I never can bear to think of. Lewis Hayden. 

The next history is a long one, and part 
of it transpired in a most public manner, in 
the face of our whole community. 

The history includes in it the whole 
account of that memorable capture of the 
Pearl, which produced such a sensation in 
Washington in the year 1848. The author, 
however, will preface it with a short history 
of a slave woman who had six children em- 
barked in that ill-fated enterprise. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Milly Edmondson is an aged woman, 
now upwards of seventy. She has received 
the slave's inheritance of entire ignorance. 
She cannot read a letter of a book, nor write 
her own name ; but the writer must say that 
she was never so impressed with any presen- 
tation of the Christian religion as that which 
was made to her in the language and appear- 
ance of this woman during the few interviews 
that she had with her. The circumstances of 
the interviews will be detailed at length in 
the course of the story. 

Milly is above the middle height, of a 
large, full figure. She dresses with the 
greatest attention to neatness. A plain 



156 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



Methodist cap shades her face, and the plain 
white Methodist handkerchief is folded across 
the bosom. A well-preserved stuff gown. 
and clean white apron, with a white pocket- 
handkerchief pinned to her side, completes 
the inventory of the costume in which the 
writer usually saw her. She is a mulatto, 
and must once have been a very handsome 
one. Her eyes and smile are still uncom- 
monly beautiful, but there are deep-wrought 
lines of patient sorrow and weary endurance 
on her face, which tell that this lovely and 
noble-hearted woman has been all her life a 
slave. 

Milly Edmondson was kept by her owners 
and allowed to live with her husband, with 
the express understanding and agreement 
that her service and value was to consist in 
breeding up her -own children to be sold in 
the slave-market. Her legal owner Avas a 
maiden lady of feeble capacity, who was set 
aside by the decision of court as incompetent 
to manage her affairs. 

The estate — that is to say, Milly Edmond- 
son and her children — was placed in the 
care of a guardian. It appears that Milly's 
poor, infirm mistress was fond of her, and 
that Milly exercised over her much of that 
ascendency which a strong mind holds over 
a weak one. Milly's husband, Paul Ed- 
mondson was a free man. A little of her 
history, as she related it to the writer, will 
now be given in her own words : 

" Her mistress," she said, "was always 
kind to her ' poor thing ! ' but then she 
had n't sperit ever to speak for herself, and 
her friends would n't let her have her own 
way. It always laid on my mind," she said, 
"that I was a slave. When I wan't more 
than fourteen years old, Missis was doing- 
some work one day that she thought she 
could nt trust me with, and she'says to me, 
' Milly, now you see it 's I that am the 
slave, and not you.' I says to her, ' Ah. 
Miosis. I am a poor slave, for all that.' I 's 
sorry afterwards I said it, for I thought it 
seemed to hurt her feelings. 

" Well, after a while, when I got engaged 
to Paul, I loved Paul very much ; but I 
thought it wan't right to bring children 
into the world to be slaves, and I told our 
folks that I was never going to marry, 
though I did love Paul. But that wan't to 
be allowed," she said, with a mysterious air. 
'• What do you mean .' " said I. 
" Well, they told me I must marry, or I 
should lie turned out of the church — so it 
was." she added, with a significant nod. — 
" Well, Paul and me, we was married, and 



we was happy enough, if it had n't been for 
that ; but when our first child was born I 
says to him, ' There 't is, now, Paul, our 
troubles is begun; this child isn't ours.' 
And every child I had, it grew worse and 
worse. ' 0, Paul,' says I, ' Avhat a thing 
it is to have children that is n't ours ! : Paul 
he says to me, ' Milly, my dear, if they be 
God's children, it an't so much matter 
whether they be ours or no ; they may be 
heirs of the kingdom, Milly, for all that.' 
Well, when Paul s mistress died, she set him 
free, and he got him a little place out about 
fourteen miles from Washington ; and they 
let me live out there with him, and take 
home my tasks ; for they had that confi- 
dence in me that they always know'd that 
what I said I 'd do was as good done as if 
they 'd seen it done. I had mostly sewing ; 
sometimes a shirt to make in a day. — it was 
coarse like, you know, — or a pair of sheets, 
or some such; but. whatever 'twas, I always 
got it done. Then I had all my house-work 
and babies to take care of; and many 's the 
time, after ten o'clock, I 've took my chil- 
dren's clothes and washed 'em all out and 
ironed : em late in the night, 'cause I 
couldn't never bear to see my children 
dirty, — always wanted to see 'em sweet 
and clean, and I brought 'em up and taught 
'em the very best ways I was able. But 
nobody knows what I suffered ; I never see 
a white man come on to the place that I 
didn't think, 'There, now, he's coming to 
look at my children ;' and when I saw any 
white man going by, I 've called in my 
children and hid 'em, for fear he 'd see 'em 
and want to buy 'em. 0, ma'am, mine 's 
been a long sorrow, a long sorrow ! I 've 
borne this heavy cross a great many years." 

" But," said I, u the Lord has been with 
you." 

She answered, with very strong emphasis, 
" Ma'am, if the Lord had n't held me up. I 
should n't have been alive this day. 0, 
sometimes my heart 's been so heavy, it 
seemed as if I must, die \ and then I've 
been to the throne of grace, and when I d 
poured out all my sorrows there, I came 
away light, and felt that I could live a little 
longer." 

This language is exactly her own. She 
bad often a forcible and peculiarly beautiful 
manner of expressing herself, which im • 
pressed what she said strongly. 

Paul and Milly Edmondson were both 
devout communicants in the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church at Washington, and the testi- 
mony to their blamelessncss of life and the 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



157 



consistence of their piety is unanimous from 
all who know them. In their simple cot- 
tage, made respectable by neatness and 
order, and hallowed by morning and evening 
prayer, they trained up their children, to 
the best of their poor ability, in the nurture 
and admonition of the Lord, to be sold in 
the slave-market. They thought themselves 
only too happy, as one after another arrived 
at the age when they were to be sold, that 
they were hired to families in their vicinity, 
and not thrown into the trader's pen to be 
drafted for the dreaded southern market ! 

The mother, feeling, with a constant but 
repressed anguish, the weary burden of 
slavery which lay upon her, was accustomed, 
as she told the writer, thus to warn her 
daughters : 

" Now, girls, don't you never come to the 
sorrows that I have. Don't you never marry 
till you get your liberty. Don't you marry, 
to be mothers to children that aii't your 
own." 

As a result of this education, some of her 
older daughters, in connection with the young 
men to whom they were engaged, raised the 
sum necessary to pay for their freedom be- 
fore they were married. One of these young 
women, at the time that she paid for her 
freedom, was in such feeble health that the 
physician told her that she could not live 
many months, and advised her to keep the 
money, and apply it to making herself as 
comfortable as she could. 

She answered, " If I had only two hours 
to live, I would pay down that money to die 
free." 

If this was setting; an extravagant value 
on liberty, it is not for an American to 
gay so. 

All the sons and daughters of this family 
were distinguished both for their physical 
and mental developments, and therefore 
were priced exceedingly high in the market. 
The whole family, rated by the market prices 
which have been paid for certain members 
of it. might be estimated as an estate of 
fifteen thousand dollars. They were dis- 
tinguished for intelligence, honesty and 
faithfulness, but above all for the most 
devoted attachment to each other. These 
children, thus intelligent, were all held as 
slaves in the city of Washington, the very 
capital where our national government is 
conducted. Of course, the high estimate 
which their own mother taught them to 
place upon liberty was in the way of being 
constantly strengthened and reinforced by 
such addresses, celebrations and speeches, 



on the subject of liberty, as every one knows 
are constantly being made, on one occasion or 
another, in our national capital. 

On the 13th day of April, the little 
schooner Pearl, commanded by Daniel 
Drayton, came to anchor in the Potomac 
river, at Washington. 

The news had just arrived of a revolution 
in France, and the establishment of a demo- 
cratic government, and all Washington was 
turning out to celebrate the triumph of 
Liberty. 

The trees in the avenue were fancifully 
hung with many-colored lanterns, — drums 
beat, bands of music played, the houses of 
the President and other high officials were 
illuminated, and men, women and children, 
were all turned out to see the procession, 
and to join in the shouts of liberty that rent 
the air. Of course, all the slaves of the 
city, lively, fanciful and sympathetic, most 
excitable as they are by music and by daz- 
zling spectacles, were everywhere listening, 
seeing, and rejoicing, in ignorant joy. All 
the heads of department, senators, represent- 
atives, and dignitaries of all kinds, marched 
in procession to an ,open space on Penn- 
sylvania Avenue, and there delivered con- 
gratulatory addresses on the progress of 
universal freedom. With unheard-of im- 
prudence, the most earnest defenders of 
slave-holding institutions poured down on 
the listening crowd, both of black and white, 
bond and free, the most inflammatory and 
incendiary sentiments. Such, for example, 
as the following; language of Hon. Frederick 
P. Stanton, of Tennessee : 

We do not, indeed, propagate our principles with 
the sword of power ; but there is one sense in 
which we are propagandists. We cannot help 
being so. Our example is contagious. In the 
section of this great country where I live, on the 
banks of the mighty Mississippi river, we have the 
true emblem of the tree of liberty. There you 
may see the giant cotton -wood spreading his 
branches widely to the winds of heaven. Some- 
times the current lays bare his roots, and you be- 
hold them extending far around, and penetrating 
to an immense depth in the soil. When the sea- 
son of maturity comes, the air is filled with a cot- 
ton-like substance, which floats in every direction, 
bearing on its light wings the living seeds of 
the mighty tree. Thus the seeds of freedom have 
emanated from the tree of our liberties. Tiny fill 
the air. They are wafted to every part of the 
habitable globe. And even in the barren sands 
of tyranny they are destined to take root. The 
tree of liberty will spring up everywhere, and 
nations shall recline in its shade. 

Senator Foote, of Mississippi, also, used 
this language : 

Such has been the extraordinary course of events 



158 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



in France, and in Europe, within the last two 
months, that the more deliberately we survey the 
scene which has been spread out before us, and 
the more rigidly we scrutinize the conduct of its 
actors, the mure confident does our conviction be- 
come that the glorious work which has been so 
well begun cannot possibly fail of complete ac- 
complishment; chat the age of tyrants and 
slavery is rapidly drawing to a close ; and that 
the happy period to be signalized by the universal 
emancipation of man from the fitters of civil op- 
pression, and the recognition in alt countries of the 
great principles of popular sovereignty, equality, 
and brotherhood, is, at this moment, visibly com- 
mencing. 

Will any one be surprised, after this, that 
seventy-seven of the most intelligent young 
slaves, male and female, in Washington city, 
honestly taking Mr. Foote and his brother 
senators at their word, and believing that 
the age of tyrants and slavery was drawing 
to a close, banded together, and made an 
effort to obtain their part in this reign of 
universal brotherhood 1 

The schooner Pearl was lying in the 
harbor, and Captain Drayton was found to 
have the heart of a man. Perhaps he. too, had 
listened to the addresses on Pennsylvania 
Avenue, and thought, in the innocence of 
his heart, that a man who really did some- 
thing to promote universal emancipation 
was no worse than the men who only made 
speeches about it. 

At any rate, Drayton was persuaded to 
allow these seventy-seven slaves to secrete 
themselves in the hold of his vessel, and 
a mo ig them were six children of Paul and 
Milly Edinondson. The incidents of the rest 
of the narrative will now be given as ob- 
tained from Mary and Emily Edmondson, 
by the lady in whose family they have been 
placed by the w r riter for an education. 

Some few preliminaries maybe necessary. 
in order to understand the account. 

A respectable colored man, by the name 
of Daniel Bell, who had purchased his own 
freedom, resided in the city of Washington. 
His wife, with her eight children, were set 
free by her master, when on his death-bed. 
The heirs endeavored to break the will, on 
the ground that he was not of sound mind 
at tli ■ time of its preparation. The magis- 
trate, li iwever, before whom it was executed, 
by his own personal knowledge of the com- 
:e of tie- ni in at the time, was enabled 
to defeal their purpose; — the family, there- 
fore, lived as frei for some years. On the 
h of this magistrate, the heirs again 
broughl the case into court, and, as it se 
likely to be decided againsl the family, they 
resolved to secure their legal rights by flight, 



and engaged passage on board the vessel of 
Captain Drayton. Many of their associates 
and friends, stirred up, perhaps, by the recent 
demonstrations in favor of liberty, begged 
leave to accompany them, in their flight. 
The seeds of the cotton-wood were flying 
everywhere, and springing up in all hearts ; 
so that, on the eventful evening; of the 15th 
of April, 1848, not less than seventy-seven 
men, women and children, with beating 
hearts, and anxious secrecy, stowed them- 
selves away in the hold of the little schooner, 
and Captain Drayton was so wicked that lie 
could not, for the life of him, say " Nay " 
to one of them. 

Richard Edmondson had long sought to 
buy his liberty; had toiled for it early and 
late ; but the price set upon him was so 
high that he despaired of ever earning it. 
On this evening, he and his three brothers 
thought, as the reign of universal brother- 
hood had begun, and the reign of tyrants and 
slavery come to an end, that they would take 
to themselves and their sisters that sacred 
gift of liberty, which all Washington had 
been informed, two evenings before, it was 
the peculiar province of America to give to 
all nations. Their two sisters, aged sixteen 
and fourteen, were hired out in families in 
the city. On this evening Samuel Edmond- 
son called at the house where Emily lived, 
and told her of the projected plan. 

"But what will mother think?" said 
Emily. 

" Don't stop to think of her; she would 
rather we 'd be free than to spend time to 
talk about her." 

" Well, then, if Mary will go, I will." 

The girls give as a reason for wishing to 
escape, that though they had never suffered 
hardships or been treated unkindly, yet they 
knew they w r ere liable at any time to be sold 
into rigorous bondage, and separated far from 
all they loved. 

They then all went on board the Pearl, 
which was lying a little way off" from the 
place where vessels usually anchor. There 
they found a Company of slaves, seventy- 
seven in number. 

At twelve o'clock at night the silent 
wing- of the little schooner were spread, and 
with her weight of fear and mystery she 
glided out into the stream. A fresh breeze 
sprang up, and by eleven o'clock next night 
they had sailed two hundred miles from 
Washington, and began to think that liberty 
was gained. They anchored in aplace called 
Cornfield Harbor, intending to wait for day- 
light. All laid down to sleep in peaceful 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



159 



security, lulled by the gentle rock of the 
vessel and the rippling of the waters. 

But at two o'clock at night they were 
roused by terrible noises on deck, scuffling, 
screaming, swearing and groaning. A 
steamer had pursued and overtaken them, 
and the little schooner was boarded by an 
infuriated set of armed men. In a moment, 
the captain, mate and all the crew, were seized 
and hound, amid oaths anc« dreadful threats. 
As they, swearing and yelling, tore open 
the hatches on the defenceless prisoners be- 
low. Richard Edmondson stepped forward, 
and in a calm voice said to them, " Gentle- 
men, do yourselves no harm, for we are all 
here." With this exception, all was still 
among the slaves as despair could make it ; 
not a word was spoken in the whole com- 
pany. The men were all bound and placed 
on board the steamer ; the women were left 
on board the schooner, to be towed after. 

The explanation of their capture was this : 
In the morning after they had sailed, many 
families in Washington found their slaves 
missing, and the event created as great an 
excitement as the emancipation of France 
had. two days before. At that time they 
had listened in the most complacent manner 
to the announcement that the reign of slavery 
was near its close, because they had not the 
slightest idea that the language meant any- 
thing : and they were utterly confounded by 
this practical application of it. More than 
a hundred men, mounted upon horses, deter- 
mined to push out into the country, in pur- 
suit of these new disciples of the doctrine of 
universal emancipation. Here a colored man, 
by the name of Judson Diggs, betrayed the 
whole plot. He had been provoked, because, 
after having taken a poor woman, with her 
luggage, down to the boat, she was unable to 
pay the twenty-five cents that he demanded. 
So. he told these admirers of universal 
brotherhood that they need not ride into the 
country, as their slaves had sailed down the 
ri ver, and were far enough off by this time. 
A steamer was immediately manned by two 
hundred armed men, and away they went 
in pursuit. 

When the cortege arrived with the cap- 
tured slaves, there was a most furious ex- 
citement in the city. The men were driven 
through the streets bound with ropes, two 
and two. Showers of taunts and jeers rained 
upon them from all sides. One man asked 
one of the girls if she " didn't feel pretty to 
be caught running away," and another asked 
her " if she was n't sorry." She answered, 
" No, if it was to do again m, she 



would do the same." The man turned to a 
bystander and said, " Han't she got good 
spunk?" 

But the most vehement excitement was 
against Drayton and Sayres, the captain and 
mate of the vessel. Ruffians armed with 
dirk-knives and pistols crowded around them, 
with the most horrid threats. One pf them 
struck so near Drayton as to cut his ear, 
which Emily noticed as bleeding. Mean- 
while there mingled in the crowd multitudes 
of the relatives of the captives, who. looking 
on them as so many doomed victims, bewailed 
and lamented them. A brother-in-law of 
the Edmondsons was so overcome when he 
saw them that he fainted away and fell down 
in the street, and was carried home insen- 
sible. The sorrowful news spread to the 
cottage of Paul and Milly Edmondson; and, 
knowing that all their children were now 
probably doomed to the southern market, 
they gave themselves up to sorrow. ' ; ! 
what a day that was ! " said the old mother 
when describing that scene to the writer. 
" Never a morsel of anything could I put into 
my mouth. Paul and me we fasted and 
prayed before the Lord, night and day, for 
our poor children." 

The whole public sentiment of the com- 
munity was roused to the most intense in- 
dignation. It was repeated from mouth to 
mouth that they had been kindly treated 
and never abused ; and what could have in- 
duced them to try to get their liberty 7 All 
that Mr. Stanton had said of the insensible 
influence of American institutions, and all 
his pretty similes about the cotton-wood seeds, 
seemed entirely to have escaped the memory 
of the community, and they could see no- 
thing but the most unheard-of depravity in 
the attempt of these people to secure free- 
dom. It was strenuously advised by many 
that their owners should not forgive them, 

— that no mercy should be shown, but that 
they should be thrown into the hands of the 
traders, forthwith, for the southern market, 

— that Siberia of the irresponsible despots 
of America. 

When all the prisoners were lodged in 
jail, the owners came to make oath to their 
property, and the property also was required 
to make oath to their owners. Among them 
came the married sisters of Mary and Emily, 
but were not allowed to enter the prison. 
The girls looked through the iron grates of 
the third-story windows, and saw their sis- 
ters standing below in the yard weeping. 

The guardian of the Edmondsons, who 
acted in the place of the real owner, apparently 



1G0 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



touched with their sorrow, promised their 
family and friends, who were anxious to 
purchase them, if possible, that they should 
have an opportunity the next morning. 
Perhaps he intended at the time to give 
them one ; but. as Bruin and Hill, the 
keepers of the large slave warehouse in 
Alexandria, offered him four thousand five 
hundred dollars for the six children, they 
were irrevocably sold before the next morn- 
ing. Bruin would listen to no terms which 
any of their friends could propose. The 
lady with whom Mary had lived offered a 
thousand dollars for her ; but Bruin re- 
fused, saying he could get double that 
sum in the New Orleans market. He 
said he 'had had his eye upon the family for 
twelve years, and had the promise of them 
should they ever be sold. 

While the girls remained in the prison 
they had no beds or chairs, and only one 
blanket each, though the nights were chilly; 
but, understanding that the rooms below, 
where their brothers were confined, were 
still colder, and that no blankets were given 
them, they sent their own down to them. 
In the morning they were allowed to go 
down into the yard for a few moments : and 
then they used to run to the window of 
their brothers' room, to bid them good-morn- 
ing, and kiss them through the grate. 

At ten o'clock, Thursday night, the 
brothers were handcuffed, and, with their 
sisters, taken into carriages by their new 
owners, driven to Alexandria, and put into 
a prison called a Georgia Pen. The girls 
were put into a large room alone, in total 
darkness, without bed or blanket, where 
they spent the night in sobs and tears, in 
utter ignorance of their brothers' fate. At 
eight o'clock in the morning they were 
called to breakfast, when, to their great com- 
fort, they found their four brothers all in 
the same prison. 

They remained here about four weeks, 
being usually permitted by day to stay be- 
low with their brothers, and at night to re- 
turn to their own rooms. Their brothers 
had great anxieties about them, fearing they 
would be sold south. Samuel, in particu- 
lar, felt very sadly, as he had been the 
principal actor in getting them away. He 
often said he would gladly die for them, if 
that would save them from the fate he feared. 
He used to weep a great deal, though he 
3ndeavored to restrain his tears in their 
presence. 

While in the slave-prison they were re- 
quired to wash for thirteen men, though 



their brothers performed a great share of 
the labor. Before they left, their size and 
height were measured by their owners. At 
length they were again taken out, the 
brothers handcuffed, and all put on board a 
steamboat, where were about forty slaves, 
mostly men, and taken to Baltimore. The 
voyage occupied one day and a night. 
When arrived in Baltimore, they were 
thrown into a slave-pen kept by a partner 
of Bruin and Hill. He was a man of 
coarse habits, constantly using the most 
profane language, and grossly obscene and 
insulting in his remarks to women. Here 
they were forbidden to pray together, as 
they had previously been accustomed to do. 
But, by rising very early in the morning, they 
secured to themselves a little interval which 
they could employ, uninterrupted, in this 
manner. They, with four or five other 
women in the prison, used to meet together, 
before daybreak, to spread their sorrows be- 
fore the Refuge of the afflicted ; and in these 
prayers the hard-hearted slave-dealer was 
daily remembered. The brothers of Mary 
and Emily were very gentle and tender in 
their treatment of their sisters, which had 
an influence upon other men in their com- 
pany, i _ 

At this place they became acquainted 
with Aunt Rachel, a' most godly woman, 
about middle age, who had been sold into 
the prison away from her husband. The 
poor husband used often to come to the 
prison and beg the trader to sell her to his 
owners, who he thought were willing to pur- 
chase her, if the price was not too high. But 
he was driven off with brutal threats and 
curses. They remained in Baltimore about 
three weeks. 

The friends in Washington, though hither- 
to unsuccessful in their efforts to redeem 
the family, were still exerting themselves in 
their behalf; and one evening a message 
was received from them by telegraph, 
stating that a person would arrive in the 
morning train of cars prepared to bargain 
for the family, and that a part of the money 
was now ready. But the trader -was in- 
exorable, and in the morning, an hour be- 
fore the cars were to arrive, they were all 
put on board the brig Union, ready to sail 
for New Orleans. The messenger came, 
and brought nine hundred dollars in money, 
the gift of a grandson of John Jacob Astor. 
This was finally appropriated to the ransom 
of Richard Edmondson, as his wife and 
children were said to be suffering in Wash- 
ington : and the trader would not sell the 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



161 



girls to them upon any consideration, nor 
would he even suffer Richard to be brought 
back from the brig, which had not yet sailed. 
The bargain was, however, made, and the 
money deposited in Baltimore. 

On this brig the eleven women were put 
in one small apartment, and the thirty or 
forty men in an adjoining one. Emily was 
very sea-sick most of the time, and her 
brothers feared she would die. They used 
to come and carry her out on deck and 
back again, buy little comforts for their sis- 
ters, and take all possible care of them. 

Frequently head winds blew them back, 
so that they made very slow progress ; and 
in their prayer-meetings, which they held 
every night, they used to pray that head 
winds might blow them to New York ; and 
one of the sailors declared that if they 
could get within one hundred miles of New 
York, and the slaves would stand by him, 
he would make way with the captain, and 
pilot them into New York himself. 

When they arrived near Key West, they 
hoisted a signal for a pilot, the captain be- 
ing aware of the dangers of the place, and yet 
not knowing how to avoid them. As the 
pilot-boat approached, the slaves were all 
fastened below, and a heavy canvas thrown 
over the grated hatchway door, which en- 
tirely excluded all circulation of air, and 
almost produced suffocation. The captain 
and pilot had a long talk about the price, 
and some altercation ensued, the captain not 
being willing to give the price demanded by 
the pilot; during which time there was great 
suffering below. The women became so ex- 
hausted that they were mostly helpless ; and 
the situation- of the men was not much bet- 
ter, though they managed with a stick to 
break some holes through the canvas on 
their side, so as to let in a little air, but a 
few only of the strongest could get there to 
enjoy it. Some of tbem shouted for help 
as long as their strength would permit ; and 
at length, after what seemed to them an 
almost interminable interview, the pilot left, 
refusing to assist them ; the canvas was re- 
moved, and the brig obliged to turn tack, 
and take another course. Then, one after 
another, as they got air and strength, crawled 
out on deck. Mary and Emily were carried 
out by their brothers as soon as they were 
able to do it. 

Soon after this the stock of provisions 
ran low, and the water failed, so that the 
slaves were restricted to a gill a day. The 
sailors were allowed a quart each, and often 
gave a pint of it to one of the Edmondsons 
for their sisters ; and they divided it with 
11 J 



the other women, as they always did every 
nice thing they got in such ways. 

The day they arrived at the mouth of the 
Mississippi a terrible storm arose, and the 
waves rolled mountain high, so that, when 
the pi lot- boat approached, it would sometimes 
seem to be entirely swallowed by the waves, 
and again it would emerge, and again ap- 
pear wholly buried. At length they were 
towed into and up the river by a steamer, 
and there, for the first time, saw cotton 
plantations, and gangs of slaves at work on 
them. 

They arrived at "NT-w Orleans in the night, 
and about ten the ct day were landed and 
marched to what they called the show-rooms, 
and, going out into the yard, saw a great 
many men and women sitting around, with 
such sad faces that Emily soon began to cry, 
upon which an overseer stepped up and 
struck her on the chin, and bade her " stop 
crying, or he would give her something to 
cry about." Then pointing, he told her 
"there was the calaboose, where they 
whipped those who did not behave them- 
selves ! " As soon as he turned away, a 
slave- woman came and told her to look cheer- 
ful, if she possibly could, as it would be far 
better for her. One of her brothers soon 
came to inquire what the woman had been 
saying to her; and when informed, en- 
couraged Emily to follow the advice, and 
endeavored to profit by it himself. 

That night all the four brothers had their 
hair cut close, their mustaches shaved off, 
and their usual clothing exchanged for a 
blue jacket and pants, all of which so 
altered their appearance that at first their 
sisters did not know them. Then, for three 
successive days, they were all obliged to stand 
in an open porch fronting the street, for 
passers by to look at, except, when one was 
tired out, she might go in for a little time, 
and another take her place. Whenever 
buyers called, they were paraded in the auc- 
tion-room in rows, exposed to coarse jokes. 
and taunts. When any one took a liking 
to any girl in the company, he would call 
her to him, take hold of her, open her 
mouth, look at her teeth, and handle her 
person rudely, frequently making obscene 
remarks ; and she must stand and bear it, 
without resistance. Mary and Emily com- 
plained to their brothers that they could not 
submit to such treatment. They conversed 
about it with Wilson, a partner of Bruin 
and Hill, who had the charge of the slaves 
at this prison. After this they were treated 
with more decency. 

Another brother of the girls, named Hani- 



162 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



ilton, had been a slave in or near New Or- 
leans for sixteen years, and had j ust purchased 
his own freedom for one thousand dollars ; 
having once before earned that sum for him- 
self, and then had it taken from him. Rich- 
ard being now really free, as the money was 
deposited in Baltimore for his ransom, found 
him out the next day after their arrival at 
New Orleans, and brought him to the prison 
to see his brothers and sisters. The meet- 
ing was overpoweringly affecting. 

He had never before seen his sister Emily, 
as he had been sold away from his parents 
before her birth. 

The girls' lodging-room was occupied at 
night by about twenty or thirty women, who 
all slept on the bare floor, with only a blan- 
ket each. After a few days, word was re- 
ceived (which was really incorrect'), that 
half the money had been raised for the 
redemption of Mary and Emily. After 
this they were allowed, upon their broth- 
ers' earnest request, to go to their free 
brother's house and spend their nights. 
and return in the mornings, as they had 
suffered greatly from the mosquitos and 
other insects, and their feet were swollen and 
sore. 

While at this prison, some horrible cases 
of cruelty came to their knowledge, and 
some of them under their own observation. 
Two persons, one woman and one boy, were 
whipped to death in the prison while they 
were there, though they were not in the 
same pen, or owned by the same trader, as 
themselves. 

None of the slaves were allowed to sleep 
in the day-time, and sometimes little children 
sitting-or standing idle all day would become 
so sleepy as not to be able to hold up their 
eyelids; but, if they Avere caught thus by the 
overseer, they were cruelly beaten. Mary 
and Emily used to watch the little ones, and 
let them sleep until they heard the over- 
seers coming, and then spring and rouse 
them in a moment. 

One young woman, who had been sold by 
the trailers for the worst of purposes, was 
returned, not being fortunate (?) enotfgh to 
suit her purchaser; and. as is their custom 
in such cases, was most cruelly flogged, — so 
much so that some of her flesh mortified, and 
her life was despaired of. When Mary and 
Emily first arrived at New Orleans they saw 
and conversed with her. She was then just 
beginning to sit up ; was quite small, and 
very fine-looking, with beautiful straighl 
hair, which was formerly long, but had been 
cut off short by her brutal tormentors. 



The overseer who flogged her said, in their 
hearing, that he would never flog another 
girl in that way — it was too much for any 
one to bear. They suggest that perhaps 
the reason why he promised this was be- 
cause he was obliged to be her nurse, and 
of course saw her sufferings. She was from 
Alexandria, but they have forgotten her 
name. 

One young man and woman of their com- 
pany in the prison, who were engaged to be 
married, and were sold to different owners, 
felt so distressed at their separation that 
they could not or did not labor well ; and 
the young man was soon sent back, with 
the complaint that he would not answer the 
purpose. Of course, the money was to be 
refunded, and he flogged. He was con- 
demned to be flogged each night for a week ; 
and, after about two hundred lashes by the 
overseer, each one of the male slaves in the 
prison was required to come and lay on five 
lashes with all his strength, upon penalty of 
being flogged himself. The young woman, 
too, was soon sent there, with a note from her 
new mistress, requesting that she might be 
whipped a certain number of lashes, and 
enclosing the money to pay for it; which 
request was readily complied with. 

While in New Orleans they saw gangs of 
women cleaning the streets, chained to- 
gether, some with a heavy iron ball attached 
to the chain ; a form of punishment fre- 
quently resorted to for household servants 
who had displeased their mistresses. 

Hamilton Edmondson, the brother who 
had purchased his own freedom, made great 
efforts to get good homes for his brothers 
and sisters in New Orleans, so that they 
need not be far separated from each other. 
One day, Mr. Wilson, the overseer, took 
Samuel away with him in a carriage, and 
returned without him. The brothers and 
sisters soon found that he was sold, and 
gone they knew not whither: but they were 
not allowed to weep, or even look sad, upon 
pain of severe punishment. The next day, 
however, to their great joy, he came to the 
prison himself, and told them lie had a good 
home in the city with an Englishman, who 
had paid a thousand dollars for him. 

After remaining about three, weeks in this 
pi'ison, the Edmondsons were told that, in 
consequence of the prevalence of the yellow 
fever in the city, together with the fact of 
their not being acclimated, it was deemed 
dangerous for them to remain there longer; 
— and, besides this, purchasers were loth to 
give good prices under these circumstances. 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



163 



Some of the slaves in the pen were already 
sick ; some of them old, poor or dirty, and 
for these reasons greatly exposed to sickness. 
Richard Edmondson had already been ran- 
somed, and must be sent back ; and, upon 
the whole, it was thought best to fit out and 
send off a gang to Baltimore, without delay. 
The Edmondsons received these tidings 
with joyful hearts, for they had not yet 
been undeceived with regard to the raising 
of the money for their ransom. Their 
brother who was free procured for them 
many comforts for the voyage, such as a 
mattress, blankets, sheets and different kinds 
of food and drink ; and, accompanied to the 
vessel by their friends there, they embarked 
on the brig Union just at night, and were 
towed out of the river. The brig had 
nearly a full cargo of cotton, molasses, sugar, 
&c, and, of course, the space for the slaves 
was exceedingly limited. The place allotted 
the females was a little close, filthy room, 
perhaps eight or ten feet square, filled with 
cotton within two or three feet of the top of 
the room, except the space directly under the 
hatchway door. Richard Edmondson kept 
his sisters upon deck with him, though with- 
out a shelter ; prepared their food himself, 
made up their bed at night on the top of bar- 
rels, or wherever he could find a place, and 
then slept by their side. Sometimes a storm 
would arise in the middle of the night, when 
he would spring up and wake them, and, 
gathering up their bed and bedding, conduct 
them to a little kind of a pantry, where they 
could all three just stand, till the storm 
passed away. Sometimes he contrive*d to 
make a temporary shelter for them out of 
bits of boards, or something else on deck. 

After a voyage of sixteen days, they 
arrived at Baltimore, fully expecting that 
their days of slavery were numbered. Here 
they were conducted back to the same old 
prison from which they had been taken a 
few weeks before, though they supposed it 
would be but for an hour or two. Presently 
Mr. Bigelow, of Washington, came for 
Richard. "When the girls found that they 
were not to be set free too, their grief and 
disappointment were unspeakable. But 
they were separated, — Richard to go to 
his home, his wife and children, and they 
to remain in the slave-prison. Wearisome 
days and nights again rolled on. In the 
mornings they were obliged to march round 
the yard to the music of fiddles, banjoes, &c. ; 
in the day-time they washed and ironed for 
the male slaves, slept some, and wept a great 
deal. After a few weeks their father came 
" to visit them, accompanied by their sister. 



His object was partly to ascertain what 
were the very lowest terms upon which their 
keeper would sell the girls, as he indulged 
a faint hope that in some way or other the 
money might be raised, if time enough were 
allowed. The trader declared he should 
soon send them to some other slave-market, 
but he would wait two weeks, and, if the 
friends could raise the money in that time, 
they might have them. 

The night then father and sister spent in 
the prison with them, he lay in the room 
over their heads ; and they could hear him 
groan all night, while their sister was weep- 
ing by their side. None of them closed 
their eyes in sleep. 

In the morning came again the wearisome 
routine of the slave-prison. Old Paul 
walked quietly into the yard, and sat down 
to see the poor slaves marched around. He 
had never seen his daughters in such cir- 
cumstances before, and his feelings quite 
overcame him. The yard was narrow, and 
the girls, as they walked by him, almost 
brushing him with their clothes, could just 
hear him groaning within himself, " 0, my 
children, my children ! " 

After the breakfast, which none of them 
were able to eat, they parted with sad 
hearts, the father begging the keeper to send 
them to New Orleans, if the money could 
not be raised, as perhaps their brothers there 
might secure for them kind masters. 

Two or three weeks afterwards Bruin k 
Hill visited the prison, dissolved partnership 
with the trader, settled accounts, and took the 
Edmondsons again in their own possession. 

The girls Avere roused about eleven o'clock 
at night, after they had fallen asleep, and 
told to get up directly, and prepare for going 
home. They had learned that the word of 
a slave-holder is not to be trusted, and feared 
they were going to be sent to Richmond, 
Virginia, as there had been talk of it. They 
were soon on their way in the cars with 
Bruin, and arrived at Washington at a little 
past midnight. 

Their hearts throbbed high when, after 
these long months of weary captivity, they 
found themselves once more in the city 
where were their brothers, sisters and pa- 
rents. But they were permitted to see in >ne 
of them, and were put into a carriage and 
driven immediately to the slave-prison at 
Alexandria, where, about two o'clock at 
night, they found themselves in the same for- 
lorn old room in which they had begun their 
term of captivity ! 

This was the latter part of August. Again 
they were employed in washing, ironing and 



1C4 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



sewing by day, and always locked up by 
night. Sometimes they were allowed to 
sew in Bruin's house, and even to eat there. 
After they had been in Alexandria two or 
three weeks, their eldest married sister, not 
having heard from them for some time, came 
to see Bruin, to learn, if possible, something 
of their fate; and her surprise and joy were 
great to see them once more, even there. 
After a few weeks their old father came again 
to see them. Hopeless as the idea of their 
emancipation seemed, he still clung to it. He 
had had some encouragement of assistance in 
Washington, and he purposed to go North 
to see if anything could be done there ; and 
he was anxious to obtain from Bruin what 
were the very lowest possible ter^ns for which 
he would sell the girls. Bruin drew up his 
terms in the following document, which we 
subjoin : 

Alexandria, Va., Sept. 5, 1848. 

The bearer, Paul Edmondson, is the father of 
two girls, Mary Jane and Emily Catharine Ed- 
mondson. These girls have been purchased by 
us, and once sent to the south ; and, upon the 
positive assurance that the money for them would 
be raised if they were brought back, they were 
returned. Nothing, it appears, has as yet been 
done in this respect by those who promised, and 
we are on the very eve of sending them south the 
second time ; and we are candid in saying that, if 
they go again, we will not regard any promises 
made in relation to them. The father wishes to 
raise money to pay for them ; and intends to ap- 
peal to the liberality of the humane and the good 
to aid him, and has requested us to state in writ- 
ing the conditions upon which we ivill sell his 
daughters. 

We expect to start our servants to the south in 
a few days ; if the sum of twelve hundred ($1200) 
dollars be raised and paid to us in fifteen days, or 
we be assured of that sum, then we will retain 
them fur twenty-five days more, to give an oppor- 
tunity for the raising of the other thousand and 
fifty ($1050) dollars; otherwise we shall be com- 
pelled to send them along with our other servants. 

Bruin & Hill. 

Paul took his papers, and parted from his 
daughters sorrowfully. After this, the time 
to the girls dragged on in heavy suspense. 
Constantly they looked for letter or message, 
and prayed to God to raise them up a de- 
liverer from some quarter. But day after 
day and week after week passed, and the 
dreaded time drew near. The preliminaries 
for fitting up the gang for South Carolina 
commenced. Gay calico was bought for them 
to make up into "show dresses," in which 
they were to be exhibited on sale. They 
made them up with far sadder feelings than 
they would have sewed on their own .shrouds. 
Hope had almost died out of their bosoms 
A few days before the gang were to be sent 



off, their sister made them a sad farewell visit. 
They mingled their prayers and tears, and 
the girls made up little tokens of remem- 
brance to send by her as parting gifts to 
their brothers and sisters and aged father 
and mother, and with a farewell sadder than 
that of a death-bed the sisters parted. 

The evening before the coffle was to start 
drew on. Mary and Emily went to the 
house to bid Bruin's family good-by. Bruin 
had a little daughter who had been a pet and 
favorite with the girls. She clung round 
them, cried, and begged them not to go. 
Emily told her that, if she wished to have 
them stay, she must go and ask her father. 
Away ran the little pleader, full of her 
errand ; and was so very earnest in her im- 
portunities, that he, to pacify her, said he 
would consent to their remaining, if his part- 
ner, Captain Hill, would do so. At this 
time Bruin, hearing Mary crying aloud in 
the prison, went up to see her. With all the 
earnestness of despair, she made her last ap- 
peal to his feelings. She begged him to 
make the case his own, to think of his own 
dear little daughter, — what if she were ex- 
posed to be torn away from every friend on 
earth, and cutoff from all hope of redemption, 
at the very moment, too, when deliverance was 
expected ! Bruin was not absolutely a man 
of stone, and this agonizing appeal brought 
tears to his eyes. He gave some encourage- 
ment that, if Hill would consent, they need 
not be sent off with the gang. A sleepless 
night followed, spent in weeping, groaning 
and prayer. Morning at last dawned, and, 
according to orders received the day before, 
they prepared themselves to go, and even 
put on their bonnets and shawls, and stood 
ready for the word to be given. When the 
very last tear of hope was shed, and they 
were going out to join the gang, Bruin's 
heart relented. He called them to him, and 
told them they might remain ! 0, how glad 
were their hearts made by this, as they might 
now hope on a little longer! Either the 
entreaties of little Martha or Mary's plea 
with Bruin had prevailed. 

Soon the gang was started on foot, — men, 
women and children, two and two, the men 
all handcuffed together, the right wrist of 
one to the left wrist of the other, and a chain 
passing through the middle from the hand- 
cuffs of one couple to those of the next. The 
women and children walked in the same 
manner throughout, handcuffed or chained. 
Drivers went before and at the side, to take 
up those who were sick or lame. They were 
obliged to set off sinsrinsr ! accompanied 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



165 



with fiddles and banjoes ! — " For they that 
carried us away captive required of us a 
song, and they that wasted us required 
of us mirth." And this is a scene of daily 
occurrence in a Christian country ! — and 
Christian ministers say that the right to do 
these things is given by God himself ! ! 

Meanwhile poor old Paul Edmondson went 
northward to supplicate aid. Any one who 
should have travelled in the cars at that 
time might have seen a venerable-looking 
black man, all whose air and attitude indi- 
cated a patient humility, and who seemed to 
carry a weight of overwhelming sorrow, like 
one who had long been acquainted with grief. 
That man was Paul Edmondson. 

Alone, friendless, unknown, and, worst of 
all, black, he came into the great bustling 
city of New York, to see if there was any 
one there who could give him twenty-five 
hundred dollars to buy his daughters with. 
Can anybody realize what a poor man's feel- 
ings are, who visits a great, bustling, rich 
city, alone and unknown, for such an ob- 
ject? The writer has now, in a letter 
from a slave father and 
visiting Portland on a 
touching expression of it 



a 

husband who was 
similar errand, a 



I walked all day, till I was tired and discouraged. 

O ! Mrs. S , when I see so many people who 

seem to have so many more things than they want 
or know what to do with, and then think that I 
have worked hard, till I am past forty, all my life, 
and don't own even my own wife and children, it 
makes me feel sick and discouraged ! 

So sick at heart and discouraged felt 
Paul Edmondson. He went to the Anti- 
Slavery Office, and made his case known. 
The sum was such a large one, and seemed to 
many so exorbitant, that, though they pitied 
the poor father, they were disheartened 
about raising it. They wrote to Washing- 
ton to authenticate the particulars of the 
story, and wrote to Bruin and Hill to see 
if there could be any reduction of price. 
Meanwhile, the poor old man looked sadly 
from one adviser to another. He was re- 
commended to go to the Rev. H. W. Beecher, 
and tell his story. He impaired his way to 
his door, — ascended the steps to ring the 
door-bell, but his heart failed him, — he sat 
down on the steps weeping ! 

_ There Mr. Beecher found him. He took 
him in, and inquired his story. There was 
to be a public meeting that night, to raise 
money. The hapless father begged him to 
go and plead for his children. He did go, 
and spoke as if he were pleading for his own 
father and sisters. Other clergymen fol- 



lowed in the same strain, — the meeting be- 
came enthusiastic, and the money was raised 
on the spot, and poor old Paul laid his head 
that night on a grateful pillow, — not to 
sleep, but to give thanks ! 

Meanwhile the girls had been dragging 
on anxious days in the slave-prison. They 
were employed in sewing for Bruin's family, 
staying sometimes in the prison and some- 
times in the house. 

It is to be stated here that Mr. Bruin is 
a man of very different character from many 
in his trade. He is such a man as never 
would have been found in the profession of 
a slave-trader, had not the most respectable 
and religious part of the community defended 
the right to buy and sell, as being conferred 
by God himself. It is a fact, with regard to 
this man, that he was one of the earliest sub- 
scribers to the Natio?ial Era, in the District 
of Columbia ; and, when a certain individual 
there brought himself into great peril by as- 
sisting fugitive slaves, and there was no one 
found to go bail for him, Mr. Bruin came 
forward and performed this kindness. 

While we abhor the horrible system and 
the horrible trade with our whole soul, there 
is no harm, we suppose, in wishing that such 
a man had a better occupation. Yet we can- 
not forbear reminding all such that, when 
we come to give our account at the judg- 
ment-seat of Christ, every man must speak 
for himself alone ; and that Christ will 
not accept as an apology for sin the word of 
all the ministers and all the synods in the 
country. He has given fair warning, " Be- 
ware of false prophets ; " and if people will 
not beware of them, their blood is upon their 
own heads. 

The girls, while under Mr. Bruin's care, 
were treated with as much kindness and con- 
sideration as could possibly consist with the 
design of selling them. There is no doubt 
that Bruin was personally friendly to them, 
and really wished most earnestly that they 
might be ransomed; but then he did not see 
how he was to lose two thousand five hun- 
dred dollars. He had just the same dif- 
ficulty on this subject that some New York 
members of churches have had, when they 
have had slaves brought into their hands as 
security for Southern debts. He was sorry 
for them, and wished them well, and hoped 
Providence would provide for them when 
they were sold, but still he could not afford 
to lose his money ; and while such men re- 
main elders and communicants in churches 
in New York, we must not be surprised that 
there remain slave-traders in Alexandria. 



166 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



It is one great art of the enemy of souls 
to lead men to compound for their partici- 
pation in one branch of sin by their right- 
eous horror of another. The slave-trader 
has been the general scape-goat on whom all 
parties have vented their indignation, while 
buying of him and selling to him. 

There is an awful warning given in the 
fiftieth Psalm to those who in word have 
professed religion and in deed consented to 
iniquity, where from the judgment-seat 
Christ is represented as thus addressing 
them : ' ' What hast thou to do to declare my 
statutes, or that thou shouldst take my cove- 
nant into thy mouth, seeing thou hatest in- 
struction, and castest my words behind 
thee 1 When thou sawest a thief, then thou 
consentedst with him, and hast been par- 
taker with adulterers." 

One thing is certain, that all who do these 
things, openly or secretly, must, at last, 
make up their account with a Judge who 
is no respecter of persons, and who will just 
as soon condemn an elder in the church for 
slave-trading as a professed trader ; nay, He 
may make it more tolerable for the Sodom 
and Gomorrah of the trade than for them, — 
for it may be, if the trader had the means of 
grace that they have had, that he would have 
repented long ago. 

But to return to our history. — The girls 
were sitting sewing near the open window 
of their cage, when Emily said to Mary, 
" There, Mary, is that white man we have 
seen from the North. ' ' They both looked, and 
in a moment more saw their own dear father. 
They sprang and ran through the house and 
the office, and into the street, shouting as 
they ran, followed by Bruin, who said he 
thought the girls were crazy. In a moment 
they were in their father's arms, but ob- 
served that he trembled exceedingly, and 
that his voice was unsteady. They eagerly 
inquired if the money was raised for their 
ransom. Afraid of exciting their hopes too 
soon, before their free papers were signed, 
he said he would talk with them soon, and 
went into the office with Mr. Bruin and Mr. 
Chaplin. Mr. Bruin professed himself sin- 
cerely glad, as undoubtedly he was, that they 
had brought the money ; but seemed much 
hurt by the manner in which lie had been 
spoken of by the Rev. II. W. Beechcratthc 
liberation meeting in New York, thinking 
it hard that no difference should be made 
between him and other traders, when he had 
shown himself so much more considerate and 
humane than the great body of them. lie, 
however, counted over the money and signed 



the papers with great good will, taking out 
a five-dollar gold piece for each of the girls, 
as a parting present. 

The affair took longer than they supposed, 
and the time seemed an age to the poor girls, 
who were anxiously walking up and down 
outside the room, in ignorance of their fate. 
Could their father have brought the money ? 
Why did he tremble so? Could he have 
failed of the money, at last? Or could it be 
that their dear mother was dead, for they 
had heard that she was very ill ! 

At length a messenger came shouting to 
them, " You are free, you are free ! " Emily 
thinks she sprang nearly to the ceiling over- 
head. They jumped, clapped their hands, 
laughed and shouted aloud. Soon their 
father came to them, embraced them tenderly 
and attempted to quiet them, and told them 
to prepare them to go and see their mother. 
This they did they know not how, but with 
considerable help from the family, who all 
seemed to rejoice in their joy. Their father 
procured a carriage to take them to the 
wharf, and, with joy overflowing all bounds, 
they bade a most affectionate farewell to 
each member of the family, not even omit- 
ting Bruin himself. The "good that there 
is in human nature " for once had the up- 
per hand, and all were moved to tears of 
sympathetic joy. Their father, with sub- 
dued tenderness, made great efforts to soothe 
their tumultuous feelings, and at length par- 
tially succeeded. When they arrived at 
Washington, a carriage was ready to take 
them to their sister's house. People of every 
rank and description came running together 
to get a sight of them. Their brothers 
caught them up in their arms, and ran 
about with them, almost frantic with joy. 
Their aged and venerated mother, raised up 
from a sick bed by the stimulus of the glad 
news, was there, weeping and giving thanks 
to God. Refreshments were prepared in 
their sister's house for all who called, and 
amid greetings and rejoicings, tears and 
gladness, prayers and thanksgivings, but 
without sleep, the night passed away, and 
the morning of November 4, 1848, dawned 
upon them free and happy. 

This last spring, during the month of 
May, as the writer has already intimated, 
the aged mother of the Edinondson family 
came on to New York, and the reason of 
her coming may be thus briefly explained. 
She had still one other daughter, the guide 
and support of her feeble age, or, as she calls 
her in her own expressive language, " the 
last drop of blood in her heart." She had 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



167 



also a son, twenty-one years of age, still a 
slave on a neighboring plantation. The in- 
firm woman in whose name the estate was 
held was supposed to be drawing near to 
death, and the poor parents were distressed 
with the fear that, in case of this event, their 
two remaining children would be sold for 
the purpose of dividing the estate, and thus 
thrown into the dreaded southern market. 
No one can realize what a constant horror 
the slave-prisons and the slave-traders are 
to all the unfortunate families in the vicinity. 
Everything for which other parents look 
on their children with pleasure and pride is 
to these poor souls a source of anxiety and 
dismay, because it renders the child so much 
more a merchantable article. 

It is no wonder, therefore, that the light 
in Paul and Milly' s cottage was overshad- 
owed by this terrible idea. 

The guardians of these children had given 
their father a written promise to sell them 
to him for a certain sum, and by hard beg- 
ging he had acquired a hundred dollars tow- 
ards the twelve hundred which were neces- 
sary. But he was now confined to his bed 
with sickness. After pouring out earnest 
prayers to the Helper of the helpless, Milly 
says, one day she said to Paul, " I tell ye, 
Paul, I 'm going up to New York myself, 
to see if I can't get that money." 

■'Paul says to me, ' Why. Milly dear, how 
can you? Ye an't fit to be off the bed, and 
ye 's never in the cars in your life.' 

" ' Never you fear, Paul,' says I; ' I shall 
go trusting in the Lord ; and the Lord. 
He '11 take me, and He '11 bring me, — that I 
know.' 

" So I went to the cars and got a white 
man to put me aboard ; and, sure enough, 
there I found two Bethel ministers; and 
one set one side o' me, and one set the other, 
all the way ; and they got me my tickets, 
and looked after my things, and did every 
thing for me. There did n't anything hap- 
pen to me all the way. Sometimes, when I 
went to set down in the sitting-rooms, peo- 
ple looked at me and moved off so scornful ! 
Well, I thought, I wish the Lord would give 
you a better mind." 

Emily and Mary, who had been at school 

' in New York State, came to the city to 

meet their mother, and they brought her 

directly to the Rev. Henry W. Beecher's 

house, where the writer then was. 

The writer remembers now the scene 
when she first met this mother and daugh- 
ters. It must be recollected that they had 
not seen each other before for four years. 



One was sitting each side the mother, hold- 
ing her hand ; and the air of pride and filial 
affection with which they presented her was 
touching to behold. After being presented 
to the writer, she again sat down between 
them, took a hand of each, and looked very 
earnestly first on one and then on the other ; 
and then, looking up, said, w T ith' a smile, 
" 0, these children, — how they do lie round 
our hearts ! " 

She then explained to the writer all her 
sorrows and anxieties for the younger chil- 
dren. "Now, madam," she says, "that 
man that keeps the great trading-house at 
Alexandria, that man" she said, with a 
strong, indignant expression, "has sent to 
know if there 's any more of my children to 
be sold. That man said he wanted to see 
me ! Yes, ma'am, he said he 'd give twenty 
dollars to see me. Iw T ould n't see him, if 
he 'd give me a hundred ! He sent for me 
to come and see him, when he had my daugh- 
ters in his prison. , I would n't go to see 
him, — I did n't want to see them there ! " 

The two daughters, Emily and Mary, 
here became very much excited, and broke 
out in some very natural but bitter language 
against all slave-holders. " Hush, children ! 
you must forgive your enemies," she said. 
"But they 're so wicked ! " said the girls. 
" Ah, children, you must hate the si?i, but 
love the sinner." "Well," said one of 
the girls, " mother, if I was taken again 
and made a slave of, I 'd kill myself." " I 
trust not, child, — that would be wicked." 
"But, mother, I should; I know I never 
could bear it." " Bear it,- my child V she 
answered, " it 's they that bears the sorrow 
here is they that has the glories there." 

There was a deep, indescribable pathos of 
voice and manner as she said these words, 

— a solemnity and force, and yet a sweet- 
ness, that can never be forgotten. 

This poor slave-mother, whose whole life 
had been one long outrage on her holiest 
feelings, — who had been kept from the 
power to read God's Word, whose whole 
pilgrimage had been made one day of sor- 
row by the injustice of a Christian nation, 

— she had yet learned to solve the highest 
problem of Christian ethics, and to do what 
so few reformers can do, — hate the sin, but 
love the sinner ! 

A great deal of interest was excited 
among the ladies in Brooklyn by this his- 
tory. Several large meetings were held in 
different parlors, in which the old mother re- 
lated her history with great simplicity and 
pathos, and a subscription for the re- 



168 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



demption of the remaining two of her 
family was soon on foot. It may be in- 
teresting to know that the subscription list 
was headed by the lovely and benevolent 
Jenny Lind Goldschmidt. 

Some of the ladies who listened to this 
touching story were so much interested in 
Mrs. Edinondson personally, they wished to 
have her daguerreotype taken ; both that 
they might be strengthened and refreshed 
by the sight of her placid countenance, and 
that they might see the beauty of true good- 
ness beaming there. 

She accordingly went to the rooms with 
them, with all the simplicity of a little child. 
"0," said she, to one of the ladies, "you 
can't think how happy it 's made me to get 
here, where everybody is so kind to me ! 
Why, last night, when I went home, I was so 
happy I could n't sleep. I had to go and 
tell my Saviour, over and over again, how 
happy I was." 

A lady spoke to her about reading some- 
thing. "Law bless you, honey ! I can't 
read a letter." 

" Then," said another lady, "how have 
you learned so much of God, and heavenly 
things?" 

" Well, 'pears like a gift from above." 

" Can you have the Bible read to you ?" 

" Why, yes ; Paul, he reads a little, but 
then he has so much work all day, and 
when he gets home at night he's so tired ! 
and his eyes is bad. But then the Sperit 
teaches us." 

" Do you go much to meeting?" 

" Not much now, we live so far. In 
winter I can't never. But, ! what meet- 
ings I have had, alone in the corner, — my 
Saviour and only me!" The smile with 
which these words were spoken was a thing 
to be remembered. A little girl, daughter 
of one of the ladies, made some rather 
severe remarks about somebody in the da- 
guerreotype rooms, and her mother checked 
her. 

The old lady looked up, with her placid 
smile. " That puts me in mind," she said, 
" of what I heard a preacher say once. 
' My friends,' says he, ' if you know of any- 
thing that will make a brother's heart glad., 
run quick and tell it ; but if it is some- 
thing that will only cause a sigh, ' bottle it 
up, bottle it up ! ' 0,1 often tell my chil- 
dren, ' Bottle it up, bottle it up ! ' " 

When the writer came to part with the 
old lady, she said to her : " Well, good-by, 
my dear friend; remember and pray for 
me." 



"Pray for you ! " she said, earnestly. 
" Indeed I shall, — I can't help it." She 
then, raising her finger, said, in an emphatic 
tone, peculiar to the old of her race, " Tell 
you what ! we never gets no good bread 
ourselves till we begins to ask for our 
brethren." 

The writer takes this opportunity to in- 
form all those friends, in different parts of 
the country, who generously contributed for 
the redemption of these children, that they 
are at last free ! 

The following extract from the letter 
of a lady in Washington may be interesting 
to them : 

I have seen the Edmondson parents, — Paul and 
his wife Milly. I have seen the free Edinond- 
sons, — mother, son, and daughter, — the very day 
after the great era of free life commenced, while 
yet the inspiration was on them, while the 
mother's face was all light and love, the father's 
eyes moistened and glistening with tears, the. 
son calm in conscious manhood and responsibility, 
the daughter (not more than fifteen years old, 
I think) smiling a delightful appreciation of joy 
in the present and hope in the future, thus sud- 
denly and completely unfolded. 

Thus have we finished the account of oni 
of the families who were taken on board thr 
Pearl. We have another history to give, 
to which we cannot promise so fortunate a 
termination. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Among those unfortunates guilty of lov- 
ing freedom too well, was a beautiful youno 
quadroon girl, named Emily Russell, whose 
mother is now living in New York. The 
writer has seen and conversed with her. Sho 
is a pious woman, highly esteemed and re- 
spected, a member of a Christian church. 

By the avails of her own industry she pur- 
chased her freedom, and also redeemed from 
bondage some of her children. Emily was & 
resident of Washington, D. C, a place which 
belongs not to any state, but to the United 
States ; and there, under the laws of tho 
United States, she was held as a slave. She 
was of a gentle disposition and amiable man- 
ners ; she had been early touched with a senso 
of religious things, and was on the very 
point of uniting herself with a Christian 
church ; but her heart yearned after hex 
widowed mother and after freedom, and so, 
on the fatal night when all the other poor 
victims sought the Pearl, the child Emily' 
went also among them. 

How they were taken has already been 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



169 



told. The sin of the poor girl was inexpiable. 
Because she longed for her mother's arms 
and for liberty, she could not be forgiven. 
Nothing would do for such a sin, but to throw 
her into the hands of the trader. She also 
was thrown into Bruin & Hill's jail, in 
Alexandria. Her poor mother in New York 
received the following letter from her. Read 
it, Christian mother, and think what if your 
daughter had written it to you ! 

To Mrs. Nancy Cartwright, New York. 

Alexandria, Jan. 22, 1850. 
My Dear Mother : I take this opportunity 
of writing you a few lines, to inform you that I 
am in Bruin s Jail, and Aunt Sally and all of her 
children, and Aunt Hagar and all her children, 
and grandmother is almost crazy. My dear moth- 
er, will you please to come on as soon as you 
can? I expect to go away very shortly. 0, 
mother ! my dear mother ! come now and see your 
distressed and heart-broken daughter once more. 
Mother ! my dear mother ! do not forsake me, for 
I feel desolate ! Please to come now. 
Your daughter, 

Emily Russell. 

P. S. — If you do not come as far as Alexandria, 
come to Washington, and do what you can. 

That letter, blotted and tear-soiled, was 
brought by this poor washerwoman to some 
Christian friends in New York, and shown 
to them. " What do you suppose they will 
ask for her? " was her question. All that 
she had, — her little house, her little furni- 
ture, her small earnings, — all these poor 
Nancy was willing to throw in ; but all these 
were but as a drop to the bucket. 

The first thing to be done, then, was to 
ascertain what Emily could be redeemed for ; 
and, as it may be an interesting item of 
American trade, we give the reply of the 
traders in full : 

Alexandria, Jan. 31, 1850. 
Dear Sir : When I received your letter I had 
not bought the negroes you spoke of, but since 
that time I have bought them. All I have t > say 
about the matter is, that we paid very high for the 
negroes, and cannot afford to sell the girl Eaiily 
for less than EIGHTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS. 
This may seem a high price to you, but, cotton be- 
ing very high, consequently slaves are high. We 
have two or three offers for Emily from gentlemen 
from the south. She is said to be the finest-looking 
looman in this country. As for Hagar and her sjven 
children, we will take two thousand five hun Ired 
dollars for them. Sally and her four children, 
we will take for them two thousand eight hundred 
dollars. You may seem a little surprised at the 
difference in prices, but the difference in the ne- 
groes makes the difference in price. We expect to 
start south with the negroes on the 8th February, 
and if you intend to do anything, you had better 
do it soon. Yours, respectfully, 

Bruin & Hill. 

This letter came to New York before the 



case of the Edmondsons had called the atten- 
tion of the community to this subject. The 
enormous price asked entirely discouraged 
effort, and before anything of importance 
was done they heard that the coffle had de- 
parted, with Emily in it. 

Hear, heavens ! and give ear, earth ! 
Let it be known, in all the countries of 
the earth, that the market-price of a 
beautiful Christian girl in America is from 

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED to TWO THOUSAND 

dollars; and yet, judicatories in the 
church of Christ have said, in solemn con- 
clave, that American slavery as it is 
is no evil ! * 

From the table of the sacrament and from 
the sanctuary of the church of Christ this 
girl was torn away, because her beauty was 
a salable article in the slave-market in New 
Orleans ! 

Perhaps some Northern apologist for 
slavery will say she was kindly treated here 
— not handcuffed by the wrist to a chain, 
and forced to walk, as articles less choice 
are ; that a wagon was provided, and that she 
rode; and that food abundant was given her 
to eat, and that her clothing was warm and 
comfortable, and therefore no harm was done. 
We have heard it told us, again and again, 
that there is no harm in slavery, if one is 
only warm enough, and full-fed, and com- 
fortable. It is true that the slave-woman 
has no protection from the foulest dishonor 
and the utmost insult that can be offered to 
womanhood, — none whatever in law or gos- 
pel ; but, so long as she has enough to eat and 
wear, our Christian fathers and mothers tell 
us it is not so bad ! 

Poor Emily could not think so. There 
was no eye to pity, and none to help. The 
food of her accursed lot did not nourish her ; 
the warmest clothing could not keep the 
chill of slavery from her heart. In the 
middle of the overland passage, sick, weary, 
heart-broken, the child laid her down and 
died. By that lonely pillow there was no moth- 
er. But there was one Friend, who loveth at 
all times, who is closer than a brother. Could 
our eyes be touched by the seal of faith, where 
others see only the lonely wilderness and 
the dying girl, we, perhaps, should see one 
clothed in celestial beauty, waiting for that 
short agony to be over, that He might redeem 
her from all iniquity, and present her fault- 
less before the presence of his Grace with 
exceeding joy ! 

* The words of the Georgia Annual Conference : i?e- 
solved, " That slavery, as it exists in the United States, 
is not a moral evil." 



170 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



Even the hard-hearted trader was touched 
with her sad fate, and we are credibly in- 
formed that he said he was sorry he had 
taken her. 

Bruin & Hill wrote to New York that 
the girl Emily was dead. The Quaker, 
William Harned, went with the letter, to 
break the news to her mother. Since she 
had given up all hope of redeeming her 
daughter from the dreadful doom to which 
she had been sold, the helpless mother had 
drooped like a stricken woman. She no 
longer lifted up her head, or seemed to take 
any interest in life. 

When Mr. Harned called on her, she 
asked, eagerly, 

" Have you heard anything from my 
daughter ? " 

" Yes, I have," was the reply, " a letter 
from Bruin & Hill." 

" And what is the news ? " 

He thought best to give a direct answer, 
— " Emily is dead.' 1 ' 1 

The poor mother clasped her hands, and, 
looking upwards, said, " The Lord be 
thanked ! He has heard my prayers at 
last!" 

And, now, will it be said this is an ex- 
ceptional case — it happens one time in a 
thousand ? Though we know that this is 
the foulest of falsehoods, and that the case is 
only a specimen of what is acting every day 
in the American slave-trade, yet, for argu- 
ment's sake, let us, for once, admit it to 
be true. If only once in this nation, under 
the protection of our law, a Christian girl 
had been torn from the altar and the 
communion-table, and sold to foulest shame 
and dishonor, would that have been a light 
sin? Does not Christ say, "Inasmuch as 
ye have done it unto one of the least of 
these, ye have done it unto me"? 0, 
words of woe for thee, America ! — words 
of woe for thee, church of Christ ! Hast 
thou trod them under foot and trampled 
them in the dust so long that Christ has 
forgotten them ? In the day of judgment 
every one of these words shall rise up, 
living and burning, as accusing angels to 
witness against thee. Art thou, church 
of Christ ! praying daily, " Thy kingdom 
come"? Darest thou pray, "Come, Lord 
Jesus, come quickly"? 0, what if He 
should come ? What if the Lord, whom ye 
seek, should suddenly come into his tem- 
ple ? If his soul was stirred within him 
when he found within his temple of old 
those that changed money, and sold sheep 
and oxen and doves, what will he say now, 



when he finds them selling body, blood and 
bones, of his own people ? And is the 
Christian church, which justifies this enor- 
mous system, — which has used the awful 
name of her Redeemer to sanction the buy- 
ing, selling and trading in the souls of men, 
— is this church the bride of Christ ? Is 
she one with Christ, even as Christ is one 
with the Father ? 0, bitter mockery ! 
Does this church believe that every Chris- 
tian's body is a temple of the Holy Ghost? 
Or does she think those solemn words were 
idle breath, when, a thousand times, every 
day and week, in the midst of her, is this 
temple set up and sold at auction, to be 
bought by any godless, blasphemous man, 
who has money to pay for it ! 

As to poor Daniel Bell and his family, 
whose contested claim to freedom was the 
beginning of the whole trouble, a few mem- 
bers of it were redeemed, and the rest were 
plunged into the abyss of slavery. It would 
seem as if thi3 event, like the sinking of a 
ship, drew into its maelstrom the fate of 
every unfortunate being who was in its vi- 
cinity. A poor, honest, hard-working slave- 
man, of the name of Thomas Ducket, had 
a wife who was on board the Pearl. Tom 
was supposed to know the men who counte- 
nanced the enterprise, and his master, there- 
fore, determined to sell him. He brought 
him to Washington for the purpose. Some 
in Washington doubted his legal right to 
bring a slave from Maryland for the pur- 
pose of selling him, and commenced legal 
proceedings to test the matter. While they 
were pending, the counsel for the master 
told the men who brought action against 
his client that Tom was anxious to be sold ; 
that he preferred being sold to the man who 
had purchased his wife and children, rather 
than to have his liberty. It was well known 
that Tom did not wish to be separated from 
his family, and the friends here, confiding in 
the representations made to them, consented 
to withdraw the proceedings. 

Some time after this, they received letters 
from poor Tom Ducket, dated ninety miles 
above New Orleans, complaining sadly of 
his condition, and making piteous appeals 
to hear from them respecting his wife and 
children. Upon inquiry, nothing could be 
learned respecting them. They had been 
sold and gone, — sold and gone, — no one 
knew whither ; and as a punishment to 
Tom for his contumacy in refusing to give the 
name of the man who had projected the 
expedition of the Pearl, he was denied 
the privilege of going off the place, and was 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. jfj 

not allowed to talk with the otlipr spr-vnn+a I t i • ■,• ™ 

his master fearing a lonspraw In one of Ltt* ''fv^i T ° m wroto a Ietter «• «*• 
hi letters he s°avs, " f haTe seen more noflZ' °f ) V f h fS ton - People *ho are 
trouble here in onV clay tnL I S in a h . " f 6 ,^'' ° f .S ettin S ,^h cloonments 



- — j ~> -»■ """c oceii mure 

trouble here m one day than I have in all 
my life. In another, « I would be dad 
to hear from her [his wife], but I should 
be more glad to hear of her death than for 
ner to come here." 



i ~ & v,^m S ouuu uuuuments 

have no idea of them. We give a /« c 
sunde of Tom's letter, with all its pir 
spelling, all its ignorance, helplessness, and 
misery. ' 







172 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 














m^^n- 











^U^^ tun*- ^^^ddj 










[Fcliruary 18, 1 852. 
Mr. Bigelow. Dear Sir : — I write to let you 
know how 1 am getting along. Hard times here. 



I have not had one hour to go outside the place 
since I have been on it. I put my trust in the 
Lord to help me. I long to hear from you alL 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



173 



I written to hear from you all. Mr. Bigelow, I 
hope you will not forget me. You know it was 
not my fault that I am here. I hope you will 
name me to Mr. Geden, Mr. Chaplin, Mr. Bailey, 
to help me out of it. I believe that if they would 
make the least move to it that it could be done. 
I long to hear from my family how they are get- 
ting along. You will please to write to me just 
to let me know how they are getting along. You 
can write to me. 

I remain your humble servant, 

Thomas Ducket. 

You can direct your letters to Thomas Ducket, 
in care of Mr. Samuel T. Harrison, Louisiana, 
near Bayou Goula. For God's sake let me hear 
from you all. My wife and children are not out 
of my mind day nor night.] 



CHAPTER vni. 



KIDNAPPING. 



The principle which declares that one 
human being may lawfully hold another as 
property leads directly to the trade in hu- 
man beings ; and that trade has, among 
its other horrible results, the temptation to 
the crime of kidnapping. 

The trader is generally a man of coarse 
nature and low associations, hard-hearted, 
and reckless of right or honor. He who is 
not so is an exception, rather than a speci- 
men. If he has anything good about him 
when he begins the business, it may well be 
seen that he is in a fair way to lose it. 

Around the trader are continually pass- 
ing and repassing men and women who 
would be worth to him thousands of dollars 
in the way of trade, — who belong to a 
class whose rights nobody respects, and 
who, if reduced to slavery, could not easily 
make their word good against him. The 
probability is that hundreds of free men and 
women and children are all the time being 
precipitated into slavery in this way. 

The recent case of Northrop, tried in 
Washington, D. C, throws light on this 
fearful subject. The following account is 
abridged from the New York Times: 

Solomon Northrop is a free colored citizen of 
the United States ; he was b'>rn in Essex county, 
New York, about the year 1808 ; became early a 
resident of Washington county, and married there 
in 1829. His father and mother resided in the 
county of Washington ab »ut fifty years, till their 
decease, ;in ,i wero both free. With his wife and 
children he resided at Saratoga Springs in the 
winter of 1841, and while there was employed by 
two genfclem m to drive a team South, at the rate 
of a dollar a day. In fulfilment of his employ- 



ment, he proceeded to New York, and, having taken 
out free papers, to show that he was a citizen, he 
went on to Washington city, where he arrived the 
second day of April, the same year, and put up 
at Gadsby's Hotel. Soon after he arrived he felt 
unwell, and went to bed. 

While suffering with severe pain, some persons 
came in, and, seeing the condition he was in, pro- 
posed to give him some medicine, and did so. 
This is the last thing of which he had any recol- 
lection, until he found himself chained to the floor 
of Williams' slave-pen in this city, and hand- 
cuffed. In the course of a few hours, James II. 
Burch, a slave-dealer, came in, and the colored 
man asked him to take the irons off from him, and 
wanted to know why they were put on. Burch 
told him it was none of his business. The colored 
man said he was free, and told where he was born. 
Burch called in a man by the name of Ebenezer 
Rodbury, and they two stripped the man and laid 
him across a bench, Rodbury holding him down 
by his wrists. Burch whipped him with a pad- 
dle until he broke that, and then with a cat-o'- 
nine-tails, giving him a hundred lashes ; and he 
swore he would kill him if he ever stated to any 
one that he was a free man. From that time for- 
ward the man says he did not communicate the 
fact from fear, either that he was a free man, oi 
what his name was, until the last summer. He 
was kept in the slave-pen about ten days, when 
he, with others, was taken out of the pen in the 
night by Burch, handcuffed and shackled, and 
taken down the river by a steamboat, and then to 
Richmond, where he, with forty-eight others, was 
put on board the brig Orleans. There Burch left 
them. The brig sailed for New Orleans, and on 
arriving there, before she was fastened to the 
wharf, Theophilus Freeman, another slave-dealer, 
belonging in the city of New Orleans, and who in 
1833 had been a partner with Burch in the slave- 
trade, came to the wharf, and received the slaves 
as they were landed, under his direction. This 
man was immediately taken by Freeman and shut 
up in his pen in that city. He was taken sick 
with the small-pox immediately after getting 
there, and was sent to a hospital, where he lay 
two or three weeks. When he had sufficiently 
recovered to leave the hospital, Freeman declined 
to sell him to any person in that vicinity, and sold 
him to a Mr. Ford, who resided in Rapides Parish, 
Louisiana, where he was taken and lived more 
than a year, and worked as a carpenter, working 
with Ford at that business. 

Ford became involved, and had to sell him. A 
Mr. Tibaut became the purchaser. He, in a short 
time, sold him to Edwin Eppes, in Bayou Beouf, 
about one hundred and thirty miles from the 
mouth of Red river, where Eppes has retained 
him on a cotton plantation since the year 1843. 

To go back a step in the narrative, the man 
wrote a letter, in June, 1841, to Henry B. Nor- 
throp, of the State of New York, dated and post- 
marked at New Orleans, stating that he had been 
kidnapped and was on board a vessel, but was un- 
able to state what his destination was ; but re- 
questing Mr. N. to aid him in recovering his free- 
dom, if possible. Mr. N. was unable to do any- 
thing in his behalf, in consequence of not know- 
ing where he had gone, and not being able to find 
any trace of him. His place of residence re- 
mained unknown until the month of September 
last, when the following letter was received by 
his friends : 



174 



KEY TO UNCLE TOMS CABIN. 



Bayou Beouf, August, 1852. 
Mr. William Pent, or Mr. Lewis Parker. 

Gentlemen : It having been a long time since I 
have seen or heard from you, and not knowing 
that you are living, it is with uncertainty that I 
write to you ; but the necessity of the case must 
be my excuse. Having been born free just across 
the river from you, I am certain you know me ; 
and I am here now a slave. I wish you to obtain 
free papers for me, and forward them to me at 
Marksville, Louisiana, Parish of Avovelles, and 
oblige Yours, Solomon Northrop. 

On receiving the above letter, Mr. N. applied to 
Governor Hunt, of New York, for such authority 
as was necessary for him to proceed to Louisiana 
as an agent to procure the liberation of Solomon. 
Proof of his freedom was furnished to Governor 
Hunt by affidavits of several gentlemen, General 
Clarke among others. Accordingly, in pursuance 
of the laws of New York, Henry B. Northrop was 
constituted an agent, to take such steps, by pro- 
curing evidence, retaining counsel, &c, as were 
necessary to secure the freedom of Solomon, and 
to execute all the duties of his agency. 

The result of Mr. Northrop's agency was 
the establishing of the claim of Solomon 
Northrop to freedom, and the restoring him 
to his native land. 

It is a singular coincidence that this man 
was carried to a plantation in the Red river 
country, that same region where the scene 
of Tom's captivity was laid; and his ac- 
count of this plantation, his mode of life 
there, and some incidents which he describes, 
form a striking parallel to that history. 
We extract them from the article of the 
Times : 

The condition of this colored man during the 
nine years that he was in the hands of Eppes was of 
a character nearly approaching that described by 
Mrs. Stowe as the condition of " Uncle Tom" 
while in that region. During that whole period 
his hut contained neither a floor, nor a chair, nor 
a bed, nor a mattress, nor anything for him to lie 
upon, except a board about twelve inches wide, 
with a block of wood for his pillow, and with 
a single blanket to cover him, while the walls of 
his hut did not by any means protect him from 
the inclemency of the weather. He was some- 
times compelled to perform acts revolting to hu- 
manity, and outrageous in the highest degree. 
On one occasion, a colored girl belonging to Eppes, 
about seventeen years of age, went one Sunday, 
without the permission of her master, to the near- 
est plantation, about half a mile distant, to visit 
another colored girl of her acquaintance. She re- 
turned in the course of two Or three hours, and for 
that offence she was called up for punishment, 
(which Solomon was required to inflict. Eppes com- 
pelled him to drive four stakes into the ground at 
Buch di jtances that the hands and ankles of the girl 
might he tied to them, as she lay with her lace 
upon the ground; and, having thus fastened her 
down, he compelled him, while standing by him- 

slf, to inflict one hundred lashes upon her hare 
. he being stripped naked. Saving inflicted 
the hundred blows, Solomon refused toproc 
further. Eppes tried to compel him to go on, but 



he absolutely set him at defiance, and refused to 
murder the girl. Eppes then seized the whip, and 
applied it until he was too weary to continue it. 
Blood flowed from her neck to her feet, and 
in this condition she was compelled the next day 
to go into the field to work as a field-hand. She 
bears the marks still upon her body, although the 
punishment was inflicted four years ago. 

When Solomon was about to leave, under the 
care of Mr. Northrop, this girl came from behind 
her hut, unseen by her master, and, throwing her 
arms around the neck of Solomon, congratulated 
him on his escape from slavery, and his return to 
his family; at the same time, in language of de- 
spair, exclaiming, " But, God! w r hat will be- 
come of me!" 

These statements regarding the condition of 
Solomon while with Eppes, and the punishment 
and brutal treatment of the colored girls, are 
taken from Solomon himself. It has been stated 
that the nearest plantation was distant from 
that of Eppes a half-mile, and of course there 
could be no interference on the part of neigh- 
bors in any punishment, however cruel, or how- 
ever well disposed to interfere they might be. 

Had not Northrop been able to write, as 
few of the free blacks in the slave states 
are, his doom might have been sealed for 
life in this den of misery. 

Two cases recently tried in Baltimore also 
unfold facts of a similar nature. 

The following is from 

THE CASE OF RACHEL PARKER AND HER SISTER. 

It will be remembered that more than a year 
since a young colored woman, named Mary Eliza- 
beth Parker, was abducted from Chester county 
and conveyed to Baltimore, where she was sold as 
a slave, and transported to New Orleans. A few 
days after, her sister, Rachel Parker, was also 
abducted in like manner, taken to Baltimore, and 
detained there in consequence of the interference 
of her Chester county friends. In the first case, 
Mary Elizabeth was, by an arrangement with the 
individual who had her in charge, brought back to 
Baltimore, to await her trial on a petition for free- 
dom. So also with regard to Rachel. Both, after 
trial, — the proof in their favor being so over- 
whelming, — were discharged, and are now among 

their friends in Chester county. In this com - 

tioii we give the narratives of both females, ob- 
tained since their release. 

IiarluJ Parker's Narrative. 
" I was taken from Joseph C. Miller's about 
twelve o'clock on Tuesday (Dec. 30th, L851), by 
two men who came up to the house b\ the back 
door. One came in and asked Mrs. Miller where 
Jesse McCreary lived, and thenseized me by the 
arm, and pulled me out of the house. Mrs. Miller 
called to her husband, who was in thefront porch, 
and he ran out and seized the man by the collar, 
and tried to stop him. The other, with an oath, 
then told him to take his hands oil', and if he 
touched me he would kill him. lie then told Mil- 
ler that I belonged to Mr. Schoolfield, in Balti- 
more. They then hurried me to a wagon, where 
there was another large man, put mo in, and drove 

off. 

" Mr. Miller ran across the field to head the 
wagon, and picked up a stake to run through the 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



11 



wheel, when one of the men pulled out a sword (I 
think it was a sword, I never saw one) , and threat- 
ened to cut Miller's arm off. Pollock's wagon 
being in the way, and he refusing to get out of 
the road, we turned off to the left. After we rode 
away, one of the men toro.a hole in the back of 
the carriage, to look out to see if they were com- 
ing after us, and they said they wished they had 
given Miller and Pollock a blow. 

" We stopped at a tavern near the railroad, and 
I told the landlord (I think it was) that I was free. 
I also told several persons at the car-office ; and a 
very nice-looking man at the car-office was talking 
at the door, and he said he thought that they had 
better take me back again. One of the men did 
not come further than the tavern. I was taken to 
Baltimore, where we arrived about seven o'clock 
the same evening, and I was taken to jail. 

" The next morning, a man with large light- 
colored whiskers took me away by myself, and 
asked me if I was not Mr. Schoolfield's slave. I 
told him I was not ; he said that I was, and that 
if T did not say I was he would ' cowhide me and 
salt me, and put me in a dungeon.' I told him 
I was free, and that I would say nothing but the 
truth." 

Mary E. Parker's Narrative. 

" I was taken from Matthew Donnelly's on Sat- 
urday night (Dec. 6th, or 13th, 1851); was caught 
whilst out of doors, soon after I had cleared the 
supper-table, about seven o'clock, by two men, and 
put into a wagon. One of them got into the 
wagon with'me, and rode to Elkton, Md., where I 
was kept until Sunday night at twelve o'clock, 
when I left there in the cars for Baltimore, and 
arrived there early on Monday morning. 

" At Elkton a man was brought in to see me, 
by one of the men, who said that I was not his 
father's slave. Afterwards, when on the way to 
Baltimore in the cars, a man told me that I must 
say that I was Mr. Schoolfield's slave, or he would 
shoot me, and pulled a 'rifle' out of his pocket 
and showed it to me, and also threatened to whip 
me. 

"On Monday morning, Mr. Schoolfield called 
at the jail in Baltimore to see me ; and on Tues- 
day morning he brought his wife and several other 
ladies to see me. I told them I did not know 
them, and then Mr. C. took me out of the room, 
and told me who they were, and took me back 
again, so that I might appear to know them. On 
the next Monday I was shipped to New Orleans. 

" It took about a month to get to New Orleans. 
After I had been there about a week, Mr. C. sold 
me to Madame C, who keeps a large flower-gar- 
den. She sends flowers to sell to the theatres, 
sells milk in mai'ket, &c. I went out to sell 
candy and flowers for her, when I lived with her. 
One evening, when I was coming home from the 
theatre, a watchman took me up, and I told him 
I was not a slave. He put me in the calaboose, 
and next morning took me before a magistrate, 
who sent for Madame C. , who told him she bought 
me. He then sent for Mr. C, and told him he 
must account for how he got mo. Mr. C. said that 
my mother and all the family were free, except 
mi'. The magistrate told me to go back to Mad- 
ame C, and he told Madame 0. that she must 
not let me go out at night; and ho told Mr. 0. 
tlnu he must prove how he came by me. The 
magistrate afterwards called on Mrs. C, at her 
house, and had a long talk with her in the parlor. 
I do n it know what he said, as they were by them- 



selves. About a month afterwards, I was sent 
baci to Baltimore. I lived with Madame 0. about 
six months. 

' ' There were six slaves came in the vessel with 
me to Baltimore, who belonged to Mr. D., and 
were returned because they were sickly. 

" A man called to see me at the jail after I 
came back to Baltimore, and told me that I must 
say I was Mr. Schoolfield's slave, and that if I did 
not do it he would kill me the first time he got a 
chance. He said Rachel [her sister] said she 
came from Baltimore and was Mr. Schoolfield's 
slave. Afterwards some gentlemen called on me 
[Judge Campbell and Judge Bell, of Philadelphia, 
and William II. Norris, Esq., of Baltimore], and 
I told them I was Mr. Schoolfield's slave. They 
said they were my friends, and I must tell them 
the truth. I then told them who I was, and all 
about it. 

" When T was in New Orleans Mr. C. whipped 
me because I said that I was free." 

Elizabeth, by her own account above, was seized 
and taken from Pennsylvania, Dec. 6th or 13th, 
1851, which is confirmed by other testimony. 

It is conceded that such cases, when 
brought into Southern courts, are generally 
tried with great fairness and impartiality. 
The agent for Northrop' s release testifies to 
this, and it has been generally admitted fact. 
But it is probably only one case in a hundred 
that can get into court ; — of the multitudes 
who are drawn down in the ever-widening 
maelstrom only now and then one ever comes 
back to tell the tale. 

The succeeding chapter of advertisements 
will show the reader how many such victims 
there may probably be. 



CHAPTER IX. 

SLAVES AS THEY ARE, ON TESTIMONY OP 
OWNERS. 

The investigation into the actual con- 
dition of the slave population at the South 
is beset with many difficulties. So many 
things are said pro and con, — so many 
said in one connection and denied in another, 
— that the effect is very confusing. 

Thus, we are told that the state of the 
slaves is one of blissful contentment ; that 
they would not take freedom as a gift; 
that their family relations are only now and 
then invaded; that they are a stupid race, 
almost sunk to the condition of animals ; 
that generally they are kindly treated. &c. 
&c. <fcc. 

In reading over some two hundred South- 
ern newspapers this fall, the author has been 
struck with the very graphic and circum- 
stantial pictures, which occur in all of them, 



17G 



KEY" TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



describing fugitive slaves. From these de- 
scriptions one may learn a vast many things. 
The author will here give an assortment of 
them, taken at random. It is a comment- 
ary on the contented state of the slave 
population that the writer finds two or three 
always, and often many more, in every one 
of the hundreds of Southern papers ex- 
amined. 

In reading the following little sketches of 
"slaves as they are," let the reader no- 
tice : 

1. The color and complexion of the 
majority of them. 

2. That it is customary either to describe 
slaves by some scar, or to say " No scars 
recollected. ' ' 

8. The intelligence of the parties adver- 
tised. 

4. The number that say they are free 
that are to be sold to pay jail-fees. 

Every one of these slaves has a history, — 
a history of woe and crime, degradation, 
endurance, and wrong. Let us open the 
chapter : 

South-side Democrat, Oct. 28, 1852. 
Petersburg!!, Virginia : 

REWARD. 

Twenty-five dollars, with the payment of all 
necessary expenses, will be given for the appre- 
hension and delivery of my man CHARLES, if 
taken on the Appomattox river, or within the pre- 
cincts of Petersburgh. He ran off about a week 
ago, and, if he leaves the neighborhood, will no 
doubt make for Farmville and Petersburgh. He is 
a mulatto, rather below the medium height and 
size, but well proportioned, and very active and 
sensible. He is aged about 27 years, has a mild, 
submissive look, and will, no doubt, show the ??iarks 
of a recent ivhipping, if taken. He must be de- 
livered to the care of Peebles, White, Davis & Co. 
R. II. DeJarnett, 

Oct. 25 — 3t. Lunenburgh. 

Poor Charles ! — - mulatto? — - has a mild, 
submissive look, and will probably show 
marks of a recent whipping ! 

Kosciusko Chronicle, Nov. 24, 1852 : 

COMMITTKI) 

To the Jail of Attila County, on the 8th in- 
stant, a negro boy, who calls his name GREEN, 
and says lie belongs to James Cray, <>[' Winston 
County. Said boy is about 20 years old, yellow 
complexion, round face, has << scar on his face, oni- 
on /lis left thigh, and one in his left hand, is about 5 
feet C> inches high. Had on when taken up a cut- 
ton check shirt, Linsey pants, new cloth cap, and 
was riding a large roan horse about 12 or 11 years 
old and thin in order. Tin; owner is requested to 
come forward, prove property, pay charges, and 
take him away, or he will be sold to pay charges. 
E. B. Sandeiis, Jailer A. (J. 

Oct. 12, 1312. n!2tf. 



Capitolian Vis-a- Vis, West Baton Rouge. 

Nov. 1, 1852 : 

$100 REWARD. 

Runaway from the subscriber, in Randolph 
County, on the 18th of October, a yellow boy, 
named JIM. This boy is 19 years old, a light 
mulatto with dirty sunhurnt hair, inclined* to be 
straight; he is just 5 feet 7 inches high, and 
slightly made. He had on when he left a black 
cloth cap, black cloth pantaloons, a plaided sack 
coat, a fine shirt, and brogan shoes. One hundred 
dollars will be paid for the recovery of the above- 
described boy, if taken out of the State, or fifty 
dollars if taken in the State. 

Mrs. S. P. IIau . 

Nov. 4, 1852. Huntsville, Mo. 

American Baptist, Dec. 20, 1852 : 

TWENTY DOLLARS REWARD FOR A 
PREACFIER. 

The following paragraph, headed " Twenty Dol- 
lars Reward," appeared in a recent number of the 
New Orleans Picayune : 

" Run away from the plantation of the under- 
signed the negro man Shedrick, a preacher, 5 feet 
9 inches high, about 40 years old, but looking not 
over 23, stamped N. E. on the breast, and. having 
both small toes cut off. He is of a very dark com- 
plexion, with eyes small but bright, and a look 
quite insolent. He dresses good, and was arrested 
as a runaway at Donaldson ville, some three years 
ago. The above reward will be paid for his arrest, 
by addressing Messrs. Armant Brothers, St. James 
parish, or A. Miltenberger & Co., 30 Carondelet- 
street." 

Here is a preacher who is branded on the 
breast and has both toes cut off, — and will 
look insolent yet ! There 's depravity for 
you! 

Jefferson in<[iiirer, Nov. 27, 1852 : 

$100 DOLLARS REWARD. 

RANAWAY from my plantation, in Bolivar 
County, Miss., a negro man named MAY, aged 
40 years, 5 feet 10 or 11 inches high, copper 
colored,, and very straight ; his front teeth are 
good and stand a little open ; stout through the 
shoulders, and has some scars on his back that show 
above the skin plain, caused by the whip; lie fre- 
quently hiccups when eating, if he has not got 
water handy ; he was pursued into Ozark County, 
Mo., and there left. 1 will give the above reward 
for hi_ ■"•onh'nement in jail, so that I can got him. 
James II. Cousar, 
Victoria, Bolivar County, Mississippi. 

Nov. 13, 1m. 

Delightful master to go back to, this man 
must be ! 

The Alabama Standard has for its 
motto : 

'• Resistance to tyrants isobediench 
to God." 

Date of Nov. 20th, this advertisement: 

COMMITTED 

To the Jail of Choctaw County, by Judge Young, 
of Marengo County, a RUNAWAY SLAVE, who 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



calls his name BILLY, and says he helongs to the 
late William Johnson, and was in the employ- 
ment of John Jones, neo,r Alexandria, La. He 
is about 5 feet 10 inches high, black, about 40 
years old, much scarred on the face and head, and 
quite intelligent. 

The owner is requested to come forward, prove 
his property, and take him from Jail, or he will 
be disposed of according to law. 

S. S. Houston, Jailer C. C. 

December 1, 1852. 44-tf 

Query : Whether this "quite intelligent" 
Billy had n't been corrupted by hearing 
this incendiary motto of the Standard? 

Knoxville (Tenn.) Register, Nov. 3d : 

LOOK OUT FOR RUNAWAYS ! ! 

$25 REWARD ! 

RANAWAY from the subscriber, on the night 
of the 26th July last, a negro woman named 
HARRIET. Said woman is about five feet five 
inches high, has prominent cheek-bones, large 
mouth and good front teeth,' tolerably spare built, 
about 26 years old. We think it probable she is 
harbored by some negroes not far from John My- 
natt's, in Knox County, where she and they are 
likely making some arrangements to get to a free 
state ; or she may be concealed by some negi'oes 
(her connections) in Anderson County, near Clin- 
ton. I will give the above reward for her appre- 
hension and confinement in any prison in this 
state, or I will give fifty dollars for her confine- 
ment in any jail out of this state, so that I get 
her. H. B. GOENS, 

Nov. 3. 4m Clinton, Tenn. 

The Alexandria Gazette, November 
29, 1852, under the device of Liberty 
trampling on a tyrant, motto " Sic sem- 
per tyrannis" has the following : 

TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS REWARD. 

Ranaway from the subscriber, living in the 
County of Rappahannock, on Tuesday last, Daniel, 
a bright mulatto, about 5 feet 8 inches high, about 
35 years old, very intelligent, has been a wagoner 
for several years, and is pretty well acquainted 
from Richmond to Alexandria. He calls himself 
DANIEL TURNER ; his hair curls, without show- 
ing black blood, or wool; he has a scar on one cheek, 
and his left hand has been seriously injured by a pistol- 
shot , and he was shabbily dressed when last seen. 
I will give the above reward if taken out of the 
county, and secured in jail, so that I get him 
again, or $10 if taken in the county. 

A. M. Willis. 

Rappahannock Co.,Va., Nov. 29. — eolm. 

Another " very intelligent," straight- 
haired man. Who was his father ? 

The New Orleans Daily Crescent, 
office No. 93 St. Charles-street ; Tuesday 
morning, December 13, 1852 : 

BROUGHT TO THE FIRST DISTRICT PO- 
LICE PRISON. 

NANCY, a griffe, about 34 years old, 5 feet 1| 
inch high, a scar on left wrist; says she belongs to 
Madame Wolf. 

12 



177 

CHARLES HALL, a black, about 13 years old, 
5 feet 6 inches high ; says he is free, but supposed 
to be a slave. 

PHILOMONIA, a mulattress, about 10 years 
old, 4 feet 3 inches high ; says she is free, but sup- 
posed to be a slave. 

COLUMBUS, a griffe, about 21 years old, 5 feet 
5£ inches high ; says he is free, but supposed to be 
a slave. 

SEYMOUR, a black, about 21 years old, 5 feet 
11 inch high ; says he is free, but supposed to be 
a slave 

The owners will please comply with the law 
respecting them. J Workall, Warden. 

New Orleans, Dec. 14, 1852. 

What chance for Ay of these poor fel- 
lows who say they are free ? 

$50 REWARD, 

RANAWAY from the subscriber, living in 
Unionville, Frederick County, Md., on Sunday 
morning, the 17th instant, a DARK MULATTO 
GIRL, about 18 years of age, 5 feet 4 or 5 inches 
high, looks pleasant generally, talks very quick, 
converses tolerably well, and can read. It is sup- 
posed she had on, when she left, a red Merino 
dress, black Visette or plaid Shawl, and a purple 
calico Bonnet, as those articles are missing. 

A reward of Twenty-five Dollars will be given 
for her, if taken in the State, or Fifty Dollars if 
taken out of the State, and lodged in jail, so that 
I get her again. G. R. Safpington. 

Oct. 13. — 2m. 

Kosciusko Chronicle, Mississippi : 

TWENTY DOLLARS REWARD 

Will be paid for the delivery of the boy WALK- 
ER, aged about 28 years, about 5 feet 8 or 9 
inches high, black complexion, loose make, smiles 
when spoken to, has a mild, sweet voice, and fine 
teeth. Apply at 25 Tchoupitoulas-street, up 
stairs. ol26t. 

Walker has walked off, it seems. Peace 
be with him ! 

$25 REWARD. 

RANAWAY from the subscriber, living near 
White's Store, Anson County, on the 3d of May 
last, a bright mulatto boy, named BOB. Bob is 
about 5 feet high, will weigh 130 pounds, is about 
22 years old, and has some beard on his upper lip. 
His left leg is somewhat shorter than his right, 
causing him to hobble in his walk ; has a very 
broad face, and will show color like a ivhite man. 
It is probable he has gone off with some wagoner 
or trader, or he may have free papers and be pass- 
ing as a free man. He has straight hair. 

I will give a reward of TWENTY-FIVE DOL- 
LARS for the apprehension and delivery to me of 
said boy, or for his confinement in any jail, so 
that I get him again. Clara Lockhart, 

By Adam Lockhart. 

June 30, 1852. 698 : 5 

Southern Standard, Oct. 16, 1852 : 

$50 REWARD! I! 

RANAWAY, or Stolen, from the subscriber, 
living near Aberdeen, Miss., a light mulatto wo- 
man, of small size, and about 23 years old. She 
has long, black, straight hair, and she usually koeps 



178 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



it in good order. When she left she had on either 
a white dress, or a brown calico one with white 
spots or figures, and took with her a red handker- 
chief, and a red or pink sun-bonnet. She generally 
dresses very neatly. She generally calls herself 
Mary Ann Paine, — can read print, — has some 
freckles on her face and hands, — shoes No. 
4, — had a ring or two on her fingers. She is 
very intelligent, and converses well. The above 
reward will be given for her, if taken out of the 
State, and $25 if taken within the State. 

U. McAllister. 

Memphis (weekly) Appeal will insert to the 
amount of $5, and send account to this office. 

October 6th, 1853. 20 — tf. 

Much can be seen <* this Mary Ann in 
this picture. The black, straight hair, 
usually kept in order, — the general neat- 
ness of dress, — the ring or two on the 
fingers, — the ability to read, — the fact of 
being intelligent and conversing well, are 
all to be noticed. 

$20 REWARD, 

Ranaway, on the 9th of last August, my ser- 
vant boy HENRY : he is 14- or 15 years old, a 
bright mulatto, has dark eyes, stoops a little, and 
stutters when confused. Had on, when he went 
away, white pantaloons, long blue summer coat, 
and a palm-leaf hat. I will give the above re- 
ward if he should be taken in the State of Vir- 
ginia, or $30 if taken in either of the adjoining 
States, but in either case he must be so secured 
that I get him again. Edwin C. Fitziiugh. 

Oct. 7. — eotf. 

Poor Henry ! — only 14 or 15. 

COMMITTED 

To the Jail of Lowndes County, Mississippi, on 
the 9th of May, by Jno. K. Peirce, Esq., and 
taken up as a runaway slave by William S. Cox, 
a negro man, who says his name is ROLAND, and 
that he belongs to Maj. Cathey, of Marengo Co., 
Ala., was sold to him by Henry Williams, a negro 
trader from North Carolina. 

Said negro is about 35 years old, 5 feet 6 or 8 
inches high, dark complexion, weighs about 150 
pounds, middle finger on the right hand off at the 
second joint, and had on, when committed, a black 
silk hat, black drap d'ele dress coat, and white 
linsey pants. 

The owner is requested to come forward, prove 
property, pay charges, and take him away, or ho 
will be dealt with according to' law. 

L. 11. WlLLKKOIID, 

June G, 1852. 19 — tf. Jailer. 

Richmond Semi-weekly Examiner, Oc- 
tober 20, 1852: 

FIFTY DOLLARS RFAVARD. 

Ranaway from the subscriber, residing in the 

County of Halifax, about the middle of last Au- 
gust, a Negro Man, Ned, aged some thirty or forty 
years, of medium height, copper color, full fore- 
head, and cheek bones a little prominent. No 
scars recollected, except ono of his fingers — the 



little one, probably — is stiff and crooked. The 
man Ned was purchased in Richmond, of Mr. Rob- 
ert Goodwin, who resides near Frederick-Hall, 
in Louisa County, and has a wife in that vicinity. 
He has been seen in the neighborhood, and is sup- 
posed to have gone over the Mountains, and to be 
now at work as a free man at some of the Iron 
Works ; some one having given him free papers. 
The above reward will be given for jthe apprehen- 
sion of the slave Ned, and his delivery to R. H. 
Dickinson & Bro., in Richmond, or to the under- 
signed, in Halifax, Virginia, or twenty-five if con- 
fined in any jail in the Commonwealth, so that I 
get him. Jas. M. Chappell, 

[Firm of Chappell & Tucker.] 
Aug. 10.— tf. 

This unfortunate copper-colored article is 
supposed to have gone after his vrife. 

Kentucky Whig, Oct. 22, '52 : 

$200 REWARD. 

Ranaway from the subscriber, near Mount 
Sterling, Ky., on the night of the 20th of October, 
a negro man named PORTER. Said boy is black, 
about 22 years old, very stout and active, weighs 
about 1G5 or 170 pounds, lie is a smart fellow, 
converses ivell, without the negro accent ; no particu- 
lar scars recollected. He had on a pair of coarse 
boots about half worn, no other clothing recol- 
lected. He was raised near Sharpsburg, in Bath 
county, by Harrison Caldwell, and may be lurk- 
ing in that neighborhood, but will probably 
endeavor to reach Ohio. 

I will pay the above-mentioned reward for him, 
if taken out of the State ; $50, if taken in any 
county bordering on the Ohio river ; or $25, if 
taken in this or any adjoining county, and 
secured so that I can get him. 

He is supposed to have ridden a yellow Horse, 
15 hands and one inch high, 'mane and tail both 
yellow, five years old, and paces well. 

October 21st, 1852. G. W. Proctor. 

" No particular scars recollected " ! 
St. Louis Times, Oct. 14, 1852 : 

NOTICE. 

Taken up and committed to Jail in the town of 
Rockbridge, Ozark county, Mo., on the 31st of 
August last, a runaway slave, who calls' his name 
MOSES. Had on, when taken, a brown Jeanes 
pantaloons, old cotton shirt, blue frock-coat, an 
old rag tied round his head. He is about six feet 
high, dark complexion, a scar over the left eye, 
supposed to be about 27 years old. The owner is 
hereby notified to come forward, prove said negro, 
and pay all lawful charges incurred on his account, 
or the said negro will be sold at public auction 
for read v money at the Court House door in the 
town of Rockbridge, on MONDAY, the 13th of 
December next, according to law in such cases 
made and provided, this 9th of September, 1852. 

s23d&w. Robert Hicks, Sh*ff. 

Charleston Mercury, Oct. 15, 1852 : 

FIFTY DOLLARS REWARD, 
Runaway on Sunday the 0th inst., from the 
South Carolina Railroad Company, their negro 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S 'CABIN. 



179 



man SAM, recently bought by them, with others, 
at Messrs. Cothran & Sproull's sale, at Aiken. He 
was raised in Cumberland County, North Caro- 
lina, and last brought from Richmond, Va. In 
height he is 5 feet 6:{ inches. Complexion copper 
color ; on the left arm and right leg somewhat 
scarred. Countenance good. The above reward 
will he paid for his apprehension and lodgment in 
any one of the Jails of this or any neighboring 
State. J. D. Petsch, 

June 12. Sup't Transportation. 

Kosciusko Chronicle, Nov. 24, '52: 

COMMITTED 

To the Jail of Attila County, Miss., October 
the 7th,. 1852, a negro boy, who calls his name 
HAMBLETON, and says he belongs to Parson 
William Young, of Pontotoc County ; is about 2G 
or 27 years old, about 5 feet 8 inches high, rather 
dark complexion, has two or three marks on his 
back, a small srar on his left hip. Had on, when 
taken up, a pair of blue cotton pants, white cotton 
drawers, a new cotton shirt, a pair of kip boots, 
an old cloth cap and wool hat. The owner is 
requested to come forward, prove property, pay 
charges and take him away, or he will be dealt 
with as provided in such case. 

E. B. Sanders, Jailer A. C. 

Oct. 12, 1852. n 12tf. 



. Frankfort 
21, 1852": 



Commonwealth. October 



COMMITTED TO JAIL.. 

A negro boy, who calls his name ADAM, was 
committed to the Muhlenburg Jail on the 24th of 
July, 1852. Said boy is black ; about 10 or 17 
years old ; 5 feet 8 or 9 inches high ; will weigh 
about 150 lbs. He has lost a part of the finger 
next to his little finger on the right hand; also the 
great toe on his left foot. This boy says he belongs 
to Wm. Mosley ; that said Mosley was moving to 
Mississippi from Virginia. He further states 
that he is lost, and not a runaway. His owner is 
requested to come forward, prove property, pay 
expenses, and take him away, or he will be dis- 
posed of as the law directs. 

S. II. Dempsey, J. M. C. 

Greenville, Ky., Oct. 20, 1852. 



RUNAWAY SLAVE. 

A negro man arrested and placed in the Barren 
County Jail, Ky., on the 21st instant, calling 
himself HENRY-, about 22 years old ; says he ran 
away from near Florence, Alabama, and belongs to 
John Calaway. He is about five feet eight inches 
high, dark, hut not very black; rather thin visage, 
pointed nose, no scars perceivable rather spare 
built; says he has been runaway nearly three 
months. The owner can get him by applying 
and paying the reward and expenses; if not, he 
will he proceeded against according to law. This 
24th of August, 1852. Samuel Adwell, Jailer. 

Aug. 25, 1852. — Cm 

In the same paper are two more poor 
fellows, who probably have been sold to pay 
jail-i'ees, before now. 

NOTICE. 

Taken up by M. H. Brand, as a runaway slave, 



on the 22d ult., in the city of Covington, Kenton 
county, Ky., a negro man calling himself 
CHARLES WARFIELD, about 30 years old, but 
looks older, about G feet high ; no particular 
marks : had no free papers, but he says he is free, 
and was born in Pennsylvania, and in Fayette 
county. Said negro was lodged in jail on the said 
22d ult., and the owner or owners, if any, are 
hereby notified to come forward, prove property, 
and pay charges, and take him away. 

C. W. Hull, J. K. C. 
August 3, 1852. — Gm. 



COMMITTED 

To the Jail of Graves county, Ky., on the 4th 
inst., a negro man calling himself DAVE or 
DAVID. He says he is free, but formerly belonged 
to Samuel Brown, of Prince William county, 
Virginia. He is of black color, about 5 feet 10 
inches high, weighs about 180 lbs. ; supposed to 
be about 45 years old ; had on brown pants and 
striped shirt. He had in his possession an old 
rifle gun, an old pistol, and some old clothing. 
He also informs me that he has escaped from the 
Dyersburg Jail, Tennessee, where he had been 
confined some eight or nine months. The owner is 
hereby notified to come forward, prove property, 
pay charges, &c. 

L. B. Holefield, Jailer G. C. 
. June 28, 1852. — wGm. 

Charleston Mercury, Oct. 29, 1852 : 

$200 REWARD. 

Ranaway from the subscriber, some time in 
March last, his servant LYD1A, and is suspected 
of being in Charleston. I will give the above 
reward to any person who may apprehend her, 
and furnish evidence to conviction of the person 
supposed to harbor her, or $50 for having her 
lodged in any Jail so that I get her. Lydia is a 
Mulatto looman, twenty-five years of age, four 
feet eleven inches high, with straight black hair, 
which inclines to curl, her front teeth defective, and 
has been plugged ; the gold distinctly seen when 
talking; round face, a scar under her chin, and two 
fingers on one hand stiff at the first joints. 

June 1G. tuths C. T. Scaife. 



$25 REWARD. 

Runaway from the subscriber, on or about the 
first of May last, his negro boy GEORGE, about 
18 years of age, about 5 feet high, well set, and 
speaks properly. He formerly belonged to Mr. J. 
D. A. Murphy, living in Blackville ; has a mother 
belonging to a Mr. Lorrick, living in Lexington 
District. He is supposed to have a pass, and is 
likely to be lurking about Branchville or Charles- 
ton. 

The above reward will be paid to any one 
lodging George in any Jail in the State, so that I 
can get him. 

J. J. Andrews, Orangeburg C. H. 

Orangeburg, Aug. 7, 1852. sw Sept 11 



NOTICE. 

Committed to the Jail at Colleton District as a 
runaway, JORDAN, a negro man about thirty 
years of age, who says he belongs to Dobson 



180 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



Coely, of Pulaski County, Georgia. The owner 
has notice to prove property and take him away. 
L. W. McCants, Sheriff Colleton Dist. 
Walterboro, So. Ca., Sept. 7, 1852. 

The following are selected by the Com- 
momvealthmost\y from New Orleans papers. 
The characteristics of the slaves are inter- 
esting. 

TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS REWARD 

Will be paid by the undersigned for the appre- 
hension and delivery to any Jail in this city of 
the negro woman MARIAH, who ran away from 
the Phoenix House about the 15th of October last. 
She is about 45 years old, 5 feet 4 inches high, 
stout built, speaks French and English. Was 
purchased from Chas. Deblanc. 

H. Bidwell & Co., 16 Front Levee. 



FIFTY DOLLARS REWARD. 

Ranaway about the 25th ult., ALLEN, a bright 
mulatto, aged about 22 years, 6 feet high, very 
well dressed, has an extremely careless gait, of 
slender build, and wore a moustache when he 
left; the property of J. P. Harrison, Esq., of this 
city. The above reward will be paid for his safe 
delivery at any safe place in the city. For fur- 
ther particulars apply at 10 Bank Place. 



ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS REWARD. 

We will give the above reward for the appre- 
hension of the light mulatto boy SEABOURN, 
aged 20 years, about 5 feet 4 inches high ; is stout, 
well made, and remarkably active. He is some- 
what of a circus actor, by which he may easily 
be detected, as he is always showing his gymnastic 
qualifications. The said boy absented himself on 
the 3d inst. Besides the above reward, all rea- 
sonable expenses will be paid. 

W. & II. Stackhouse, 70 Tchoupitoulas. 



TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS REWARD. 

The above reward will be paid for the appre- 
hension of the mulatto boy SEVERIN, aged 25 
years, 5 feet 6 or 8 inches high ; most of his front 
teeth are out. and the letters C. V. are marked on 
either of his arms with India Ink He speaks French, 
English (iml Spanish, and was formerly owned by 
Mr. Courcell, in the Third District. I will pay, 
in addition to the above reward, $50 for such in- 
formation as will lead to the conviction of any 
person harboring said slave. 

John Ekmon, corner Camp and Ruce sts. 



TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS REWARD. 

Ran away from the Chain Gang in New Orleans, 
First Municipality, in February last, a negro boy 
named STEPHEN. He is about 5 feet 7 inches 
in height, a very light mulatto, with blue eyes and 
brownish hair, stoops a little in the shoulders, has 
a cast-down look, and is very strongly built and 
muscular. He will not acknowledge Ids name or 
owner, is an habitual runaway, and was shut some- 
where in tin ankle while endeavoring to escape from 
Baton Rouge Jail. The above reward, with all 



attendant expenses, will be paid on his delivery 
to me, or for his apprehension and commitment to 
any Jail from which I can get him. 

A. L. BlNGAMAN. 

TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS REWARD. 

The above reward will be given to the person 
who will lodge in one of the Jails of this city the 
slave SARAH, belonging to Mr. Guisonnet, cor- 
ner St. John Baptiste and Race streets ; said slave 
is aged about 28 years, 5 feet high, benevolent 
face, fine teeth, and speaking French and English. 
Captains of vessels and steamboats are hereby 
cautioned not to receive her on board, under 
penalty of the law. Avet Brothers, 

Corner Bienville and Old Levee streets. 

Lynchburg Virginian, Nov. 6th : 

TWENTY DOLLARS REWARD. 

Ranaway from the subscriber on the Virginia 
and Tennessee Railroad, in the county of Wythe, 
on the 20th of June, 1852, a negro man named 
CHARLES, 6 feet high, copper color, with several 
teeth out in front, about 35 years of age, rather 
slow to reply, but pleasing appearance when spoken 
to. He wore, when he left, a cloth cap and a 
blue cloth sack coat ; he was purchased in Tennes- 
see, 14 months ago, by Mr. M. Connell, of Lynch- 
burg, and carried to that place, where he 
remained until I purchased him 4 months ago. 
It is more than probable that he will make his ivay to 
Tennessee, as he has a wife now living there ; or he 
may perhaps return to Lynchburg, and lurk about 
there, as he has acquaintances there. The above 
reward will be paid if he is taken in the State 
and confined so that I get him again ; or I will 
pay a reward of $40, if taken out of the State and 
confined in Jail. George W. Kyle. 

July 1. — d&c2twts 

Winchester Republican (Va.), Nov. 26: 

ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS REWARD. 

Ranaway from the subscriber, near Culpepper 
Ct. House, Va., about the 1st of October, a negro 
man named ALFRED, about five feet seven inches 
in height, about twenty-five years of age, uncom- 
monly muscular and active, complexion dark but 
not black, countenance mild and rather pleasant. 
He had a boil last winter on the middle joint of 
the middle or second finger of the right hand, 
which left the finger stiff in that joint, more visi- 
ble in opening his hand than in shutting it. He 
has a wife at Mr. Thomas G. Marshall's, near 
Farrowsvilk, in Fauquier County, and may be in 
that neighborhood, where he wishes to be sold, and 
where I am willing to sell him. 

I will give the above reward if he is taken out 
of the State and secured, so that I get him again ; 
or $50 if taken in the State, and secured in like 
manner. \V. 11. Slaughter. 

October 20, 1852. 

From the Louisville Daily Journal, 
Oct. 23, 1852 : 

$100 REWARD. 

Ran away from the subscriber, in this city, on 
Friday, May 28th, a negro boy named WYATT. 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



181 



Said boy is copper colored, 25 or 26 years old, 
about 5 feet 11 inches high, of large frame, slow 
and heavy gait, has very large hands and feet, 
small side-whiskers, a full head of hair which he 
combs to the side, quite a pleasing look, and is 
very likely. I recently purchased Wyatt from 
Mr. Garrett, of Garrett's Landing, Ky., and his 
wife is the property of Thos. G. Row/and, Esq., of 
this city. I will pay the above reward for the 
apprehension and delivery of the boy to me if 
taken out of the State, or $50 if taken in the State. 
June2d&wtf David W. Yandell. 



$200 REWARD. 

TWO NEGROES. Ranaway from the subscri- 
ber, living in Louisville, on the 2d, one negro man 
and girl. The man*s name is MILES. He is about 
5 feet 8 inches high, dark-brown color, with a 
large scar upon his head, as if caused from a burn ; 
age about 25 years ; and had with him two carpet 
sacks, one of cloth, the other enamelled leather, 
also a pass from Louisville to Owenton, Owen 
county, Ky., and back. The girl's name is JULIA, 
and she is of light-brown color, short and heavy 
6et, rather good looking, with a scar upon her fore- 
head ; had on a plaid silk dress when she left, and 
took other clothes with her ; looks to be about 16 
years of age. 

The above reward will be paid for the man, if 
taken out of the State, or $100 for the girl ; 
$100 for the man, if taken in the State, or $50 
for the girl. In either event, they are to be se- 

CUre ?^/ f P l them - John W. Lynn. 

oct 5 d&wtt 

The following advertisements are all dated 
Shelby Co., Kentucky. 

JAILER'S NOTICE. 

Was committed to the Jail of Shelby county 
a negro woman, who says her name is JUDA ; 
dark complexion ; twenty years of age ; some five 
feet high ; weighs about one hundred and twenty 
pounds ; no scars recollected, and says she belongs 
to James Wilson, living in Denmark, Tennessee. 
The owner of said slave is requested to come for- 
ward, prove property, pay charges, and take her 
away, or she will be dealt with as the law directs. 

W. II. Eanes, 

oct27 — w4t Jailer Shelby county. 

JAILER'S NOTICE. 

Was committed to the Jail of Shelby county, 
on the 28th ult., a negro boy, who says his name 
is JOHN W. LOYD ; of a bright complexion, 25 
years of age, will weigh about one hundred and 
fifty pounds, about five feet nine or ten inches 
high, three scars on his left leg, which was caused by 
a dog-bite. The said boy John claims to be free. If 
he has any master, he is hereby notified to come 
forward, prove property, pay charges, and take 
him away, or he will be dealt with as the law 
directs. [nov3 — w4t 

Also — Committed at the same time a negro 
boy, who says his name is PATRICK, of a bright 
complexion, about u0 years of age, will weigh 
about one hundred*md forty-five or fifty pounds ; 
about six feet high ; his face is very badly scarred, 
which he says was caused by being salivated. 



The disease caused him to lose the boi>e out of 
his nose, and his jaw-bone, also. Says he belongs 
to Dr. Wm. Cheathum, living in Nashville, Tenn. 
The owner of said slave is requested to come for- 
ward, prove property, pay charges, and take him 
away, or he will be dealt with as the law directs. 

[nov3 — w4t 

Also — Committed at the same time a negro 
boy, who says his name is CLAIBORNE; dark 
complexion, 22 years of age, will weigh about 
one hundred and forty pounds, about five feet 
high ; no scars recollected; says he belongs to Col. 
Rousell, living in De Soto county, Miss. The 
owner of said slave is requested to come forward, 
prove property, pay charges, and take him away, 
or he will be dealt with as the law directs. 

W. H. Eanes, 

nov3 — w4t Jailer of Shelby county. 



JAILER'S NOTICE. 

Was committed to the Jail of Shelby county a 
negro boy, who says his name is GEORGE ; dark 
complexion, about twenty-five or thirty years of 
age, some five feet nine or ten inches high ; will 
weigh about one hundred and forty pounds, no 
scars, and says he belongs to M alley Bradford, 
living in Issaqueen county, Mississippi. The 
owner of said slave is requested to come forward, 
prove property, pay charges, and take him away, 
or he will be dealt with as the law directs. 

W. H. Eanes, 

novlO. — w4t Jailer of Shelby county. 



JAILER'S NOTICE. 

Was committed to the Jail of Shelby county, 
on the 30th ult., a negro woman, who says her 
name is NANCY, of a bright complexion, some 
twenty or twenty-one years of age, will weigh 
about one hundred and forty pounds, about five 
feet high, no scars, and says she belongs to John 
Pittman, living in Memphis, Tenn. The owner 
of said slave is requested to come forward, prove 
property, pay charges, and take her away, or she 
will be dealt with as the law directs. 

W. H. Eanes, 

novlO. — w4t Jailer of Shelby county. 

Negro property is decidedly " brisk" in 
this county. 

Natchez (Miss.) Free Trader, Novem- 
ber 6, 1852 : 

25 DOLLARS REWARD. 

Ranaway from the undersigned, on the 17th 
day of October, 1852, a negro man by the name 
of ALLEN, about 23 years old, near 6 feet high, 
of dark mulatto color, no marks, save one, and that 
caused by the bite of a dog ; had on, when he left, 
lowell pants, and cotton shirt ; reads imperfect, 
can make a short calculation correctly, and can 
write some few words ; said negro has run away 
heretofore, and when taken up was in possession 
of a free pass. He is quick-spoken, lively, and 
smiles when in conversation. 

I will give the above reward to any one who 
will confine said negro in any Jail, so that I can 
get him. Thos R. Cheatham. 

nov6. — 3t 



182 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



Newberry Sentinel (S. G), Nov. 17, 1852 : 
notice : 

RANAWAY from the subscriber, on the 9th of 
July last, my Boy WILLIAM, a bright mulatto, 
about 26 years old, 5 feet 9 or 10 inches high, of 
slender make, quite intelligent, speaks quick when 
spoken to, and walks briskly. Said boy, ivas brought 
from Virginia, and will ■probably attempt to get back. 
Any information of said boy will be thankfully 
received. John M. Mars. 

Near Mollohon P. 0., Newberry Dist., S. C. 

Nov. 3. 414t. 

§2f" Raleigh Register and Richmond Enquirer 
will copy four times weekly, and send bills to this 
office. 

Greensboro 1 Patriot (N. C), Nov. 6 : 

10 DOLLARS REWARD. 

RANAWAY from my service, in February, 
1851, a colored man named EDWARD WINS- 
LOW, low, thick-set, part Indian, and a first rate 
iiddler. Said Winslow was sold out of Guilford 
jail, at February court, 1851, for his prison charges, 
for the term of five years. It is supposed that he 
is at work on the Railroad, somewhere in Davidson 
county. The above reward will be paid for his 
apprehension and confinement in the jail of Guil- 
ford or any of the adjoining counties, so that I get 
him, or for his delivery to me in the south-east 
corner of Guilford. My post-office is Long's Mills, 
Randolph, N. 0. P. C. Smith. 

October 27, 1852. 702 — 5w. 

The New Orleans Trve Delta, of the 
11th ult., 1853, has the following editorial 
notice : 

The Great Raffle of a Trotting Horse and 
a Negro Servant. — The enterprising and go-a- 
head Col. Jennings has got a raffle under way 
now, which eclipses all his previous undertakings 
in that line. The prizes are the celebrated trot- 
ting horse "Star," buggy and harness, and a valu- 
able negro servant, — the latter valued at nine hun- 
dred dollars. See his advertisement in another 
column. 

The advertisement is as follows : 

RAFFLE. 

MR. JOSEPH JENNINGS 

Respectfully informs his friends and the public, 
that, at the request of many of his acquaintances, 
he lias been induced to purchase from Mr. Osborn, 
of Missouri, the celebrated dark bay Horse " Star," 
age five years, square trotter, and warranted sound, 
With a new light trotting Buggy and Harness ; 
a/50 the stout mulatto girl "Sarah," aged about twen- 
ty years , general house servant, valued at nine hun- 
dred dollars, and guaranteed ; will be raffled for at 4 
o'clock, P. M., February 1st, at any hotel selected 
by the subscribers. 

The above is as represented, and those persons 
who may wish to engage in the usual practice of 
raffling will, I assure them, be perfectly satisfied 
with their destiny in this affair. 

Fifteen hundred chances, at $1 each. 

The whole is valued at its just worth, fifteen 
.hundred dollars. 

The raffle will be conducted by gentlemen se- 
lected by the interested subscribers present. Five 



nights allowed to complete the raffle. Both of 
above can be seen at my store, No. 78 Common- 
street, second door from Camp, at from 9 o'clock 
A.M., till half-past 2 P. M. 

Highest throw takes the first choice ; the lowest 
throw the remaining prize, and the fortunate win- 
ners to pay Twenty Dollars each, for the refresh- 
ments furnished for the occasion. 

Jan. 9. 2w. J. Jennings. 

Daily Courier (Natchez, Miss.), Nov. 
20, 1852 : 

TVVENTV-FIVE DOLLARS REWARD. 

THE above reward will be given for the appre- 
hension and confinement in any jail of the negro 
man HARDY, who ran away from the subscriber, 
residing on Lake St. John, near Rifle Point, Con- 
cordia parish, La., on the 9th August last. Hardy 
is a remarkably likely negro, entirely free from all 
marks, scars or blemishes, when he left home ; about 
six feet high, of black complexion (though quite 
light), fine countenance, unusually smooth skin, 
good head of hair, fine eyes and teeth. 

Address the subscriber at Rifle Point, Concordia 
Parish, La. Robert Y. Jones. 

Oct. 30. — lm. 

What an unfortunate master — lost an 
article entirely free from " marks, scars or 
blemishes"! Such a rarity ought to be 
choice ! 

Savannah Daily Georgian, 6th Sept., 
1852: 

ARRESTED, 

ABOUT three weeks ago, under suspicious cir- 
cumstances, a negro woman, who calls herself 
PHEBE, or PHILLIS. Says she is free, and lately 
from Beaufort District, South Carolina. Said 
woman is about 50 years of age, stout in stature, 
mild-spoken, 5 feet 4 inches high, and weighs 
about 140 pounds. Having made diligent inquiry 
by letter, and from what I can learn, said woman 
is a runaway. Any person owning said slave can 
get her by making application to me, piopeily 
authentitated. Waring Russell, 

County Constable. 

Savannah, Oct. 25, 1852. oot. 26. 



250 DOLLARS REWARD. 

RANAWAY from Sparta, Ga., about the first 
of last year my boy GEORGE. He is a good car- 
penter, about 35 years : a bright mulatto, tall and 
quite likely. He was brought about three years ago 
from St. Mary's, and had, when lie ran away, a 
wife there, or near there, belonging to a Mr. Holzen- 
dorff. I think ho has told me he has been about 
Macon also. He bad, and perhaps still has, a 
brother in Savannah. He is vn-y intelligent. I 
will give the above reward for his confinement in 
some jail in the State, so that I can get him. Re- 
fer, for any further information, to Rabun & 
Whitehead, Savannah, Ga. 

W. J. Sassnett. 

Oxford, Ga., Aug. 13th, 1852. tuths3m. al7. 

From these advertisement's, and hundreds 
of similar ones, one may learn the following 
thiritfs : 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



183 



1. That the arguments for the enslaving 
of the negro do not apply to a large part 
of the actual slaves. 

'2. That they are not, in the estimation 
of their masters, very stupid. 

& That they are not remarkably con- 
tented. 

4. That they have no particular reason 
to be so. 

5. That multitudes of men claiming to 
be free are constantly being sold into slavery. 

In respect to the complexion of these 
slaves, there are some points worthy of con- 
sideration. The writer adds the following 
advertisements, published by Wm. I. Bow- 
ditch, Esq., in his pamphlet " Slavery and 
the Constitution." 

From the Richmond (Va.) Whig: 

lOO DOLLARS REWARD 

"WILL be given for the apprehension of my ne- 
gro ( ? ) Edmund Kenney. He iias straight hair, 
and complexion so nearly white that it is believed a 
stranger would suppose there was no African blood 
in him. He was with my boy Dick a short time 
since in Norfolk, and offered him for sale, and was 
apprehended, but escaped under pretence of being a 
white man ! Anderson Bowles. 

January 0, 1836. 

From the Republican Banner and Nash- 
ville Whig of July 14, 1849 : 

200 DOLLARS REWARD. 

RANAWAY from the subscriber, on the 23d of 
June last, a bright mulatto woman, named Julia, 
about 25 years of age. She is of common size, 
nearly white, and very likely. She is a good seam- 
stress, and can read a little. She may attempt to 
pass for white, — dresses fine. She took with her 
Anna, her child, 8 or Oyears old, and considerably 

darker than her mother She once 

belonged to a Mr. Helm, of Columbia, Tennessee. 

I will give a reward of $50 for said negro and 
child, if delivered to me, or confined in any jail in 
this state, so I can get them ; $100, if caught in 
any other Slave state, and confined in a jail so that 
I can get them ; and $200, if caught in any Free 
state, and put in any good jail in Kentucky or 
Tennessee, so I can get them. 

A. W. Johnson. 

Nashville, July 9, 1849. 

The following three advertisements are 
taken from Alabama papers : 

RANAWAY 

From the Subscriber, working on the plantation 
of Col. II. Tinker, a bright mulatto boy, named 
Alfred. Alfred is about 18 years old, pretty well 
grown, has blue eyes, light flaxen hair, shin disposed 
to freckle. He will try to pass as free-born. 

Green County, Ala. S. G. Stewart. 

lOO DOLLARS REWARD. 

Ran away from the subscriber, a bright mulatto 
man-slave, named Sam. Light, sandy hair, blue 
eyes, ruddy complexion, — is so white as very easily 
to pass for a free white man. Edwin Peck. 

Mobile, April 22, 1837. 



RANAWAY, 



On the 15th of May, from me, a negro woman, 
named Fanny. Said woman is 20 years old ; is 
rather tall ; can read and write, and so forgo 
passes for herself. Carried away with her a pair 
of ear-rings, — a Bible with a red cover ; is- very 
pious. She prays a great deal, and was, as sup- 
posed, contented and happy. She is as while as 
most white women, with straight, light hair, and blue 
eyes, and can pass herself for a white woman. I 
will give $500 for her apprehension and delivery 
to me. She is very intelligent. 

Tuscaloosa, May 29, 1845. John Balch. 

From the Newbern (N. C.) Spectator: 

50 DOLLARS REWARD 

Will be given for the apprehension and delivery 
to me of the following slaves : — Samuel, and Judy 
his wife, with their four children, belonging to 
the estate of Sacker Dubberly, deceased. 

I will give $10 for the apprehension of William 
Dubberly, a slave belonging to the estate. William 
is about 19 years old, quite white, and would not 
readily be taken for a slave. John J. Lane. 

March 13, 1837. 

The next two advertisements we cut from 
the New Orleans Picayune of Sept. 2. 
1846: 

25 DOLLARS REWARD. 

Ranaway from the plantation of Madame Fergus 
Duplantier, on or about the 27th of June, 1846, a 
bright mulatto, named Ned, very stout built, about 
5 feet 11 inches high, speaks English and French, 
about 35 years old, waddles in his walk. He may 
try to pass himself for a white man, as he is-of a 
very clear color, and has sandy hair. The above 
reward will be paid to whoever will bring him to 
Madame Duplantiers plantation, Manchac, or 
lodge him in some jail where he can be conve- 
niently obtained. 



200 DOLLARS REWARD. 

Ran away from the subscriber, last November, 
a white negro man, about 35 years old, height 
about 5 feet 8 or 10 inches, blue eyes, has a yelloio 
woolly head, very fair skin. 

These are the characteristics of three races. 
The copper-colored complexion shows the In- 
dian blood. The others are the mixed races 
of negroes and whites. It is known that the 
poor remains of Indian races have been in 
many cases forced into slavery. It is no 
less certain that white children have some- 
times been kidnapped and sold into slavery. 
Rev. George Bourne, of Virginia, Presbyte- 
rian minister, who wrote against slavery 
there as early as 1816, gives an account of 
a boy who was stolen from his parents at seven 
years of age, immersed in a tan-vat to change 
his complexion, tattooed and sold, and, after 
a captivity of fourteen years, succeeded in 
escaping. The tanning process is not neces- 
sary now, as a fair skin is no presumption 
against slavery. There is reason to think 



184 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



that the grandmother of poor Emily Rus- 
sell was a* wlute child, stolen by kidnappers. 
That kidnappers may steal and sell white 
children at the South now, is evident from 
these advertisements. 

The writer, within a week, has seen a 
fugitive quadroon mother, who had with her 
two children, — a boy of ten months, and a 
girl of three years. Both were surpassingly 
fair, and uncommonly beautiful. The girl 
had blue eyes and golden hair. The mother 
and those children were about to be sold for 
the division of an estate, which was the reason 
why she fled. When the mind once becomes 
familiarized with the process of slavery, — of 
enslaving first black, then Indian, then mu- 
latto, then quadroon, and when blue eyes and 
golden hair are advertised as properties of 
7iegroes, — what protection will there be for 
poor white people, especially as under the 
present fugitive law they can be carried 
away without a jury trial ? 

A Governor of South Carolina openly'de- 
clared, in 1835, that the laboring population 
of any country, bleached or unbleached, 
were a dangerous element, unless reduced 
to slavery. Will not this be the result, then 7 



CHAPTER VIII. 

" POOR WHITE TRASH." 

When the public sentiment of Europe 
speaks in tones of indignation of the system 
of American slavery, the common reply has 
been, " Look at your own lower classes" 
The apologists of slavery have pointed Eng- 
land to her own 'poor. They have spoken 
of the heathenish ignorance, the vice, the 
darkness, of her crowded cities, — nay, even 
of her agricultural districts. 

Now, in the first place, a country where 
the population is not crowded, where the 
resources of the soil are more than sufficient 
for the inhabitants, — a country of recent 
origin, not burdened with the worn-out 
institutions and clumsy lumber of past ages, 
— ought not to be satisfied to do only as well 
as countries which have to struggle against 
all these evils. 

It is a poor defence for America to say to 
older countries, " We are no worse than you 
are." She ought to be infinitely better. 

But it will appear that the institution of 
slavery has produced not only heathenish, 
degraded, miserable slaves, but it produces 
a class of white people avIio are, by univer- 



sal admission, more heathenish, degraded, 
and miserable. The institution of slavery 
has accomplished the double feat, in America, 
not only of degrading and brutalizing her 
black working classes, but of producing, 
notwithstanding a fertile soil and abundant 
room, a poor white population as degraded 
and brutal as ever existed in any of the most 
crowded districts of Europe. 

The way that it is done can be made ap- 
parent in a few words. 1. The distribu- 
tion of the land into large plantations, and 
the consequent sparseness of settlement, 
make any system of common-school edu- 
cation impracticable. 2. The same cause 
operates with regard to the preaching of the 
gospel. 3. The degradation of the idea of 
labor, which results inevitably from en- 
slaving the working class, operates to a 
great extent in preventing respectable work- 
ing men of the middling classes from settling 

o o o 

or remaining in slave states. Where carpen- 
ters, blacksmiths and masons, are advertised 
every week with their own tools, or in com- 
pany with horses, hogs and other cattle, 
there is necessarily such an estimate of the 
laboring class that intelligent, self-respecting 
mechanics, such as abound in the free states, 
must find much that is annoying and disa- 
greeable. They may endure it for a time, 
but with much uneasiness ; and they are glad 
of the first opportunity of emigration. 

Then, again, the filling up of all branches 
of mechanics and agriculture with slave labor 
necessarily depresses free labor. Suppose, 
now, a family of poor whites in Carolina or 
Virginia, and the same family in Vermont 
or Maine ; how different the influences that 
come over them ! In Vermont or Maine, 
the children have the means of education at 
hand in public schools, and they have all 
around them in society avenues of success 
that require only industry to make them 
available. The boys have their choice 
among all the different trades, for which the 
organization of free society makes a steady 
demand. The girls, animated by the spirit 
of the land in which they are born, think 
useful labor no disgrace, and find, with true 
female ingenuity, a hundred ways of adding 
to the family stock. If there be one mem- 
ber of a family in whom diviner gifts and 
higher longings seem a call for a more fin- 
ished course of education, then cheerfully 
the whole family unites its productive indus- 
try to give that one the wider education 
which his wider genius demands; and thus 
have been given to the world such men as 
I Roger Sherman and Daniel Webster. 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 



185 



But take this same family and plant them 
in South Carolina or Virginia — how differ- 
ent the result ! No common school opens 
its doors to their children ; the only church, 
pei'haps, is fifteen miles off, over a bad road. 
The whole atmosphere of the country in 
which they are born associates degradation 
and slavery with useful labor ; and the only 
standard of gentility is ability to live without 
work. What branch of useful labor opens 
a way to its sons ? Would he be a black- 
smith ? — The planters around him prefer to 
buy their blacksmiths in Virginia. Would 
he be a carpenter ? — Each planter in his 
neighborhood owns one or two now. And 
so coopers and masons. Would he be a 
shoe-maker? — The plantation shoes are made 
in Lynn and Natick, town3 of New Eng- 
land. In fact, between the free labor of the 
North and the slave labor of the South, 
there is nothing for a poor white to do. 
Without schools or churches, these misera- 
ble families grow up heathen on a Christian 
soil, in idleness, vice, dirt and discomfort 
of all sorts. They are the pest of the 
neighborhood, the scoff and contempt or pity 
even of the slaves. The expressive phrase, 
so common in the mouths of the negroes, of 
" poor white trash," says all for this luckless 
race of beings that can be said. From this 
class spring a tribe of keepers of small grog- 
geries, and dealers, by a kind of contraband 
trade, with the negroes, in the stolen produce 
of plantations. Thriving and promising 
sons may perhaps hope to grow up into 
negro-traders, and thence be exalted into 
overseers of plantations. The utmost stretch 
of ambition is to compass money enough, by 
any of a variety of nondescript measures, 
to "buy a nigger or two," and begin to 
appear like other folks. Woe betide the 
unfortunate negro man or woman, carefully 
raised in some good religious family, when 
an execution or the death of their proprie- 
tors throws them into the market, and they 
are bought by a master and mistress of this 
class ! Oftentimes the slave is infinitely 
the superior, in every respect, — in person, 
manners, education and morals ; but, for all 
that, the law guards the despotic authority 
of the owner quite as jealously. 

From all that would appear, in the case 
of Souther, which we have recorded, he 
must have been one of this class. We have 
certain indications, in the evidence, that the 
two white witnesses, who spent the whole 
day in gaping, unresisting survey of his 
diabolical proceedings, were men of this 
order. It appears that the crime alleged 



against the poor victim was that of getting 
drunk and trading with these two very men, 
and that they were sent for probably by 
way of showing them " what a nigger would 
get by trading with them." This circum- 
stance at once marks them out as belonging 
to that band of half-contraband traders who 
spring up among the mean whites, and occa- 
sion owners of slaves so much inconvenience 
by dealing with their hands. Can any 
words so forcibly show what sort of white 
men these are, as the idea of their stand- 
ing in stupid, brutal curiosity, a whole day, ' 
as witnesses in such a hellish scene ? 

Conceive the misery of the slave who falls 
into the hands of such masters ! A clergy- 
man, now dead, communicated to the writer 
the following anecdote: In travelling in 
one of the Southern States, he put up for 
the night in a miserable log shanty, kept by 
a man of this class. All was dirt, discom- 
fort and utter barbarism. The mnn, his 
wife, and their stock of wild, neglected chil- 
dren, drank whiskey, loafed and predominat- 
ed over the miserable man and woman who 
did all the work and bore all the caprices of 
the whole establishment. He — the gentle- 
man — was not long in discovering that these 
slaves were in person, language, and in every 
respect, superior to their owners; and all 
that he could get of comfort in this misera- 
ble abode was owing to their ministrations. 
Before he went away, they contrived to have 
a private interview, and begged him to buy 
them. They told him that they had been 
decently brought up in a respectable and 
refined family, and that their bondage was 
therefore the more inexpressibly galling. 
The poor creatures had waited on him with 
most assiduous care, tending his horse, 
brushing his boots, and anticipating all his 
wants, in the hope of inducing him to buy 
them. The clergyman said that he never 
so wished for money as when he saw the 
dejected visages with which they listened to 
his assurances that he was too poor to com- 
ply with their desires. 

This miserable class of whites form, in all 
the Southern States, a material for the most 
horrible and ferocious of mobs. Utterly 
ignorant, and inconceivably brutal, they aro 
like some blind, savage monster, which, 
when aroused, tramples heedlessly over 
everything in its way. 

Singular as it may appear, though slavery 
is the cause of the misery and degradation of 
this class, yet they are the most vehement 
and ferocious advocates of slavery. 

The reason is this. They feel the scorn 



186 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



of the upper classes, and their only means 
of consolation is in having a class below 
them, whom they may scorn in turn. To 
set the negro at liberty would deprive them 
of this last comfort ; and accordingly no 
class of men advocate slavery with such 
frantic and unreasoning violence, or hate 
abolitionists with such demoniac hatred. Let 
the reader conceive of a mob of men as 
brutal and callous as the two white witnesses 
of the Souther tragedy, led on by men like 
Souther himself, and he will have some idea 
of the materials which occur in the worst 
kind of Southern mobs. 

The leaders of the community, those men 
who play on other men with as little care 
for them as a harper plays on a harp, keep 
this blind, furious monster of the mob, very 
much as an overseer keeps plantation-dogs, 
as creatures to be set on to any man or thing 
whom they may choose to have put down. 

These leading men have used the cry of 
"abolitionism" over the mob, much as a 
huntsman uses the "set on" to his dogs. 
Whenever they have a purpose to carry, a 
man to put down, they have only to raise 
this cry, and the monster is wide awake, 
ready to spring wherever they shall send 
him. 

Does a minister raise his voice in favor of 
the slave 1 — Immediately, with a whoop and 
'hurra, some editor starts the mob on him, as 
an abolitionist. Is there a man teaching his 
negroes to read ? — The mob is started upon 
him — he must promise to give it up, or 
leave the state. Does a man at a public 
hotel-table express his approbation of some 
anti-slavery work I — Up come the police, and 
arrest him for seditious language ; * and on the 
heels of the police, thronging round the 
justice's office, come the ever-ready mob, — 
men with clubs and bowie-knives, swearing 
that they will have his heart 's blood. The 
more respectable citizens in vain try to com- 
pose them; it is quite' as hopeful to reason 
with a pack of hounds, and the only way is 
to smuggle the suspected person out of the 
state as quickly as possible. All these are 
scenes of common occurrence at the South. 
Every Southern man knows them to be so, 
and they know, too, the reason why they arc 
so; but, so much do they fear the monster, 
that they dare not say what they know. 

This brute monster sometimes gets be- 
yond the power of his masters, and then 
results ensue most mortifying - to the patriot- 



* The writer is describing hero a scene of recent occur- 
rence in a slave 6tato, of whose particulars she has tho 
best means of knowledge. Tho work in <iuestion was 
« Uncle Tom's Cabin." 



ism of honorable Southern men, but which 
they are powerless to prevent. Such was 
the case when the Honorable Senator Hoar, 
of Massachusetts, with his daughter, visited 
the city of Charleston. The senator was 
appointed by the sovereign State of Massa- 
chusetts to inquire into the condition of her 
free colored citizens detained in South Caro- 
lina prisons. We cannot suppose that men of 
honor and education, in South Carolina, can 
contemplate without chagrin the fact that 
this honorable gentleman, the representa- 
tive of a sister state, and accompanied by 
his daughter, was obliged to flee from Soutli 
Carolina, because they were told that the 
constituted authorities would not be powerful 
enough to protect them from the ferocities 
of a mob. This is not the only case in which 
this mob power has escaped from the hands 
of its guiders, and produced mortifying re- 
sults. The scenes of Vicksburg, and the 
succession of popular whirlwinds which at 
that time flew over the south-western states, 
have been forcibly painted by the author of 
" The White Slave." 

They who find these popular outbreaks 
useful when they serve their own turns are 
sometimes forcibly reminded of the conse- 
quences 

" Of letting rapine loose, and murder, 
To go just so far, and no further ; 
And setting all the land on fire, 
To burn just so high, and no higher." 

The statements made above can be sub- 
stantiated by various documents, — mostly 
by the testimony of residents in slave states, 
and by extracts from their newspapers. 

Concerning the class of poor whites, Mr. 
William Gregg, of Charleston, South Caro- 
lina, in a pamphlet, called "Essays on Do- 
mestic Industry, or an Inquiry into the 
expediency of establishing Cotton Manufac- 
tories in South Carolina, 1845," says, p. 22 : 

Shall we pass unnoticed the thousands of poor, 
ignorant, degraded white people among us, who, 
in this land of plenty, live in comparative naked- 
ness and starvation? Many a one is reared in 
proud South Carolina, from birth to manhood, whe 
has never passed a month in which he lias not. 
some part of tho time, been stinted for meat. 
Many a mother is there who will tell you that hei 
children are but scantily provided with bread, and 
much more scantily with meat ; and, if they be clac 
with comfortable raiment, it is at the expense of 
these scanty allowances of food. These may be 
startling statements, but they are nevertheless true; 
and if not believed in Charleston, the members oi 
our legislature who have traversed the state in 
electioneering campaigns can attest their truth." 

The Rev. Henry Duffner, D.D., Presi- 
dent of Lexington College, Va., himself i 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



187 



slave-holder, published in 1847 an address 
to the people of Virginia, showing that slav- 
ery is injurious to. public welfare, in which 
he shows the influence of slavery in producing 
a decrease of the white population. He says : 

It appears that, in the ten years from 1830 to 
1840. Virginia lost by emigration no fewer than 
three hundred and seventy-five thousand of her 
people ; of whom East Virginia lost three hun- 
dred and four thousand, and West Virginia 
seventy-one thousand. At this rate, Virginia 
supplies the West, every ten years, with a 
population equal in number to the population 
of the State of Mississippi in 1840. * * * * * 
She has sent — or, we should rather say, she has 
driven — from her soil at least one-third of all the 
emigrants who have gone from the old states to 
the new. More than another third have gone from 
the other old slave states. Many of these multi- 
tudes, who have left the slave states, have shunned 
the regions of slavery, and settled in the free 
countries of the West. These were generally in- 
dustrious and enterprising white men, who found, 
by sad experience, that a country of slaves was 
not the country for them. It is a truth, a certain 
truth, that slavery drives free laborers — farmers, 
mechanics and all, and some of the best of them, too 
— out of the country, and Jills their places with ne- 
groes. ***** Even the common mechanical 
trades do not flourish in a slave state. Some 
mechanical operations must, indeed, be performed 
in every civilized country ; but the general rule in 
the Smith is, to import from abroad every fabri- 
cated thing that can be carried in ships, such as 
household furniture, boats, boards, laths, carts, 
ploughs, axes, and axe-helves ; besides innumerable 
other tilings, which free communities are accus- 
tomed to make for themselves. What is most 
wonderful is, that the forests and iron mines of 
the South supply, in great part, the materials out 
of which these things are made. The Northern 
freemen come with their ships, carry home ^the 
timber and pig-iron, work them up, supply their 
own wants with a part, and then sell the rest at a 
good profit in the Southern markets. Now, al- 
though mechanics, by setting up their shops in 
the South, could save all these freights and profits, 
yet so it is that Northern mechanics will not settle 
in the South, and the Southern mechanics are un- 
dersold by their Northern competitors. 

In regard to education, Rev. Theodore 
Parker gives the following statistics, in his 
"Letters on Slavery," p. 65: 

In 1671, Sir William Berkely, Governor of Vir- 
ginia, said, " I thank God that there are no free 
schools nor printing-presses (in Virginia), and I 
hope we shall not have them these hundred years." 
In 1840, in the fifteen slave states and territories, 
there were at the various primary schools 201,085 
scholars ; at the various primary schools of the 
free states, 1,626,028. The State of Ohio alone 
had, at her primary schools, 17,524 more scholars 
than all the fifteen slave states. New York alone 
had 301,282 more. 

In the slave states there are 1,368,325 free white 
children between the ages of five and twenty ; in 
the free states, 3,536,689 such children. In the 
slave states, at schools and colleges, there are 
301,172 pupils; in the free states, 2,212,444 
pupils at schools or colleges. Thus, in the slave 
states, out of twenty-five free white children be- 



tween five and twenty, there are not quite five at 
any school or college ; while out of twenty-five 
such children in the free states, there are more 
than fifteen at school or college. 

In the slave states, of the free white population 
that is over twenty years of age, there is almost 
one-tenth part that are unable to read and write ; 
while in the free states there is not quite one in 
one hundred and fifty-six who is deficient to that 
degree. 

In New England there are but few born therein, 
and more than twenty years of age, who are un- 
able to read and write ; but many foreigners 
arrive there with no education, and thus swell the 
numberof the illiterate, and diminish the apparent 
effect of her free institutions. The South has few 
such emigrants ; the ignorance of the Southern 
States, therefore, is to be ascribed to other causes. 
The Northern men wdio settle in the slave-holding 
states have perhaps about the average culture of 
the North, and more than that of the South. The 
South, therefore, gains educationally from immi- 
gration, as the North loses. 

Among the Northern States Connecticut, and 
among the Southern States South Carolina, are to 
a great degree free from disturbing influences of 
this character. A comparison between the two 
will show the relative effects of the respective in- 
stitutions of the North and South. In Connecti- 
cut there are 163,843 free persons over twenty 
years of age ; in South Carolina, but 111,663. In 
Connecticut there are but 526 persons over twenty 
who are unable to read and write, while in South 
Carolina there are 20,615 free white persons over 
twenty years of age unable to read and write. In 
South Carolina, out of each 626 free whites more 
than twenty years of age there are more than 58 
wholly unable to read or write ; out of that num- 
ber of such persons in Connecticut, not quite two ! < 
More than the sixth part of the adult freemen of 
South Carolina are unable to read the vote which 
will be deposited at the next election. It is but 
fair to infer that at least one-third of the adults 
of South Carolina, if not of much of the South, are 
unable to read and understand even a newspaper. 
Indeed, in one of the slave states this is not a 
matter of mere inference ; for in 1837 Gov. Clarke, 
of Kentucky, declared in his message to the legis- 
lature that "one-third of the adult population 
were unable to write their names ;" yet Kentucky 
has a " school-fund," valued at $1,221,819, while 
South Carolina has none. 

One sign of this want of ability even to read, in 
the slave states, is too striking to be passed by. 
The staple reading of the least-cultivated Ameri- 
cans is the newspapers, one of the lowest forms of 
literature, though one of the most powerful, read 
even by men who read nothing else. In the slave 
states there are published but 377 newspapers, 
and in the free 1135. These numbers do not ex- 
press the entire difference in the case ; for, as a 
general rule, the circulation of the Southern news- 
papers is 50 to 75 per cent, less than that of the- 
North. Suppose, however, that each Southern 
newspaper has two-thirds the circulation of a 
Northern journal, we have then but 225 newspapers 
for the slave states ! The more valuable journals — 
the monthlies and quarterlies — are published 
almost entirely in the free States. 

The number of churches, the number and char- 
acter of the clergy who labor for these churches, 
are other measures of the intellectual and moral 
condition of the people. The scientific character 
of the Southern clergy has been already touched 
on. Let us compare the more external facts. 



188 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



In 1830, South Carolina had a population of 
581,185 souls; Connecticut, 297,075. In 1830, 
South Carolina had 304 ministers ; Connecticut, 
498. 

In 1834, there were in the slave states but 
82,532 scholars in the Sunday-schools ; in the free 
states, 504,835 ; in the single State of New York, 
101,708. 

The fact of constant emigration from 
slave states is also shown by such extracts 
from papers as the following, from the 
Raleigh (N. C.) Register, quoted in the 
columns of the National Era : 



THEV WILL LEAVE NORTH CAROLINA. 

Our attention was .arrested, on Saturday last, 
by quite a long train of wagons, winding through 
our streets, which, upon inquiry, we found to be- 
long to a party emigrating from Wayne county, 
in this state, to the " far West." This is but a 
repetition of many similar scenes that we and 
others have witnessed during the past few years ; 
and such spectacles will be still more frequently 
witnessed, unless something is done to retrieve 
our fallen fortunes at home. 

Jf there he any one "consummation devoutly 
to be wished " in our policy, it is that our young 
men should remain at home, and not abandon 
their n'ative state. From the early settlement of 
North Carolina, the great drain upon her pros- 
perity has been the spirit of emigration, which 
bus so prejudicially affected all the states of the 
South. Her sons, hitherto neglected (if we must 
say it) by an unparental government, have 
wended their way, by hundreds upon hundreds, 
from the land of their fathers, — that land, too, to 
make it a paradise, wanting nothing but a market, 
— to bury their bones in the land of strangers. 
We firmly believe that this emigration is caused 
by the laggard policy of our people on the subject 
of internal improvement, for man is not prone 
by nature to desert the home of his affections. 

The editor of the Era also quotes the fol- 
lowing from the Greensboro (Ala. ) Beacon : 

" An unusually large number of movers have 
passed through this village, within the past two 
or three weeks. On one day of last week, up- 
wards of thirty wagons and other vehicles belong- 
ing to emigrants, mostly from Georgia and South 
Carolina, passed through on their way, most of 
them hound to Texas and Arkansas." 

This tide of emigration does not emanate from 
an overflowing population. Very far from it. 
Bather it marks an abandonment of a soil which, 
exhausted by injudicious culture, will no longer 
repay the labor of tillage. The emigrant, turning 
his hack upon the homes of his childhood, leaves 
a desolate region, it may be, and finds that he can 
indulge in his feelings of local attachment only at 
the risk of starvation. 

How are the older states of the South to keep 
their population] We say nothing of an increase, 
but how are they to hold their own? It is use- 
less to talk about strict construction, state rights, 
or Wilmot Provisos. Of what avail can such 
things be to a sterile desert, upon which people 
cannot subsist? 

In the columns of the National Era, 



Oct. 2, 1851, also is the following article, 
by its editor : 

STAND YOUR GROUND. 

A citizen of Guilford county, N. C, in a letter 
to the True Wesleyan, dated August 20th, 1851, 
writes : 

" You may discontinue my paper for the present, 
as I am inclined to go Westward, where I can 
enjoy religious liberty, and have my family in a 
free country. Mobocracy has the ascendency 
here, and there is no law. Brother Wilson had 
an appointment on Liberty Hill, on Sabbath. 24th 
inst. The mob came armed, according to mob 
law, and commenced operations on the meeting- 
house. They knocked all the weather-boarding off, 
destroying doors, windows, pulpit, and benches ; 
and I have no idea that, if the mob was to kill a 
Wesleyan, or one of their friends, that they would 
be hung. 

" There is more moving this fall to the far West 
than was ever known in one year. People do not 
like to be made slaves, and they are determined 
to go where it is no crime to plead the cause of 
the poor and oppressed. They have become 
alarmed at seeing the laws of God trampled under 
foot with impunity, and that, too, by legislators, 
sworn officers of the peace, and professors of reli- 
gion. And even ministers (so called) are justify- 
ing mobocracy. They think that such a course 
of conduct will lead to a dissolution of the Union, 
and then every man will have to fight in defence 
of slavery, or be killed. This is an awful state 
of things, and, if the people were destitute of the 
Bible, and the various means of information which 
they possess, there might be some hope of reform. 
But there is but little hope, under existing circum- 
stances." 

We hope the writer will reconsider his purpose. 
In his section of North Carolina there are very 
many anti-slavery men, and the majority of the 
people have no interest in what is called slave 
property. Let them stand their ground, and 
maintain the right of free discussion. How ia 
the despotism of Slavery to be put down, if those 
opposed to it abandon their rights, and flee their 
country? Let them do as the idomitable Clay 
does in Kentucky, and they will make themselves 
respected. 

The following is quoted, without comment, 
in the National Era, in 1851, from the col- 
umns of the Augusta Republic (Georgia) . 

FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN GEORGIA. 

( Warrenton (Ga.), 

( Thursday, July 10, 1851. 

This day the citizens of the town and county 
met in the court-house at eight o'clock, A. M. On 
motion, Thomas F. Parsons, Esq., was called to 
the chair, and Mr. Wm. II. Pilcher requested to 
act as secretary. 

The object of the meeting was stated by the 
chairman, as follows : 

Whereas, our community has been thrown into 
confusion by the presence among us of one 
Nathan Bird Watson, who hails from New Haven 
(Conn.), and who has been promulgating abolition 
sentiments, publicly and privately, among our 
people, — sentiments at war with our institutions, 
and intolerable in a slave community, — and also 
been detected in visiting suspicious negro houses, 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



189 



as we suppose for the purpose of inciting our 
slaves and free negro population to insurrection 
and insubordination. 

The meeting having been organized, ffm. Gib- 
son, Esq., offered the following resolution, which, 
after various expressions of opinion, was unani- 
mously adopted, ,to wit : 

Resolved, That a committee of ten be appointed 
by the chairman for the purpose of making ar- 
rangements to expel Nathan Bird Watson, an 
avowed abolitionist, who has been in our village 
for three or four weeks, by twelve o'clock this day, 
by the Georgia Railroad cars ; and that it shall 
be the duty of said committee to escort the said 
Watson to Camak, for the purpose of shipment to 
his native land. 

The following gentlemen were named ad that 
committee : 

William Gibson, E. Cody, J. M.Roberts, J. B. 
Huff, E. II. Pottle, E. A. Brinkley, John C. Jen- 
nings, George W. Dickson, A. B. Rogers, and 
Dr. R. W. Hubert. 

On motion, the chairman was added to that 
committee. 

It was, on motion, 

Resolved, That the proceedings of this meeting, 
with a minute description of the said Watson, be 
forwarded to the publishers of the Augusta papers, 
with the request that they, and all other pub- 
lishers of papers in the slave-holding states, pub- 
lish the same for a sufficient length of time. 

Description. — The said Nathan Bird Watson 
is a man of dark complexion, hazel eyes, black 
hair, and wears a heavy beard ; measures five 
feet eleven and three-quarter inches ; has a quick 
step, and walks with his toes inclined inward, 
and a little stooped-shouldered , now wears a 
checked coat and white pants ; says he is twenty- 
three years of age, but will pass for twenty-five 
or thirty. 

On motion, the meeting was adjourned. 

Thomas F. Parsons, Chairman. 

William II. Pilcher, Secretary. 

This may be regarded as a specimen of 
that kind of editorial halloo which is de- 
signed to rouse and start in pursuit of a 
man the bloodhounds of the mob. 

The following is copied by the Natioiial 
Era from the Richmond Times : 

LYNCH LAW. 

On the 13th inst. the vigilance committee of 
the county of Grayson, in this state, arrested a 
man named John Cornutt [a friend and follower 
of Bacon, the Ohio abolitionist], and, after ex- 
amining the evidence against him, required him 
to renounce his abolition sentiments. This Cor- 
nutt refused to do ; thereupon, he was stripped, 
tied to a tree, and whipped. After receiving a 
dozen stripes, he caved in, and promised, not only 
to recant, but to sell hia property in the county 
[consisting of land and negroes], and leave the 
state. Great excitement prevailed throughout 
the country, and the Wytheville Republican of the 
20th instant states that the vigilance commtftt se 
of Grayson were in hot pursuit of other obnoxious 
, persons. 

On this outrage the Wytheville Repub- 
lican makes the following comments : 



Laying aside the white man, humanity to the 
negro, the slave, demands that these abolitionists 
be dealt with summarily, and above the law. 

On Saturday, the 13th, we learn that the com- 
mittee of vigilance of that county, to the number 
of near two hundred, had before them one John 
Cornutt, a citizen, a friend and backer of Bacon, 
and promulgator of his abolition doctrines. They 
required him to renounce abolitionism, and promise 
obedience to the laws. He refused. They stripped 
him, tied him to a tree, and appealed to him 
again to renounce, and promise obedience to the 
laws. He refused. The rod was brought ; one, 
two, three, and on to twelve, on the bare back, 
and he cried out; he promised — and, more, he 
said he would sell and leave. 

This Mr. Cornutt owns land, negroes and 
money, say fifteen to twenty thousand dollars. 
He has a wife, but no white children. He has 
among his negroes some born on his farm, of 
mixed blood. He is believed to be a friend of the 
negro, even to amalgamation. He intends to set 
his negroes free, and make them his heirs. It is 
hoped he will retire to Ohio, and there finish his 
operations of amalgamation and emancipation. 

The vigilance committees were after another of 
Bacon's men on Thursday ; we have not heard 
whether they caught him, nor what followed. 
There are not more than six of his followers that 
adhere ; the rest have renounced him, and are 
much outraged at his imposition. 

Mr.. Cornutt appealed for redress to the 
law. The result of his appeal is thus stated 
in the Richmond (Va.) Ti?nes, quoted by 
the National Era : 

MORE TROUBLE IN GRAYSON. 

The clerk of Grayson County Court having, on 
the 1st inst. (the first day of Judge Brown's 
term) tendered his resignation, and there being 
no applicant for the office, and it being publicly 
stated at the bar that no one would accept said 
appointment, Judge Brown found himself unable 
to proceed with business, and accordingly ad- 
journed the court until the first day of the next 
term. 

' Immediately upon the adjournment of the 
court, a public meeting of the citizens of the 
county was held, when resolutions were adopted 
expressive of the determination of the people to 
maintain the stand recently taken ; exhorting the 
committees of vigilance to increased activity in 
ferreting out all persions tinctured with abo- 
litionism in the county, and offering a reward of 
one hundred dollars for the apprehension and de- 
livery of one Jonathan Roberts to any one of the 
committees of vigilance. 

We have a letter from a credible correspondent 
in Carroll county, which gives to the affair a still 
more serious aspect. Trusting that there may be 
some error about it, we have no comments to make 
until the facts are known with certainty. Our 
correspondent, whose letter bears date the 13th 
inst., says : 

" I learn, from an authentic source, that the 
Circuit Court that was to sit in Grayson county 
during last week was dissolved by violence. The 
circumstances were these. After the execution 
of the negroes in that county, some time ago, 
who had been excited to rebellion by a certain 
Methodist preacher, by the name of Bacon, of 



190 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



which you have heard, the citizens held a meeting, 
and instituted a sort of inquisition, to find out, 
if possible, who were the accomplices of said 
Bacon. Suspicion soon rested on a man by the 
name of Cornutt, and, on being charged with being 
an accomplice, he acknowledged the fact, and 
declared his intention of persevering in the cause ; 
upon which he was severely lynched. Cornutt 
then instituted suit against the parties, who after- 
wards held a meeting and passed resolutions, notify- 
ing llie court and lawyers not to undertake the case, 
upon pain of a coat of tar and feathers. The 
court, however, convened at the appointed time ; 
and, true to their promise, a band of armed men 
marched around the court-house, fired their guns by 
platoons, and dispersed the court in confusion. There 
was no blood shed. This county and the county of 
Wythe have held meetings and passed resolu- 
tions sustaining the movement of the citizens of 
Grayson." 

Is it any wonder that people emigrate 
from states where such things go on 1 

The following accounts will show what 
ministers of the gospel will have to en- 
counter who undertake faithfully to express 
their sentiments in slave states. The first 
is an article by Dr. Bailey, of the Era of 
April 3, 1852 : 

LYNCHING IN KENTUCKY. 

The American Baptist, of Utica, New York, pub- 
lishes letters from the Rev. Edward Matthews, 
giving an account of his barbarous treatment in 
Kentucky. 

Mr. Matthews, it seems, is an agent of the 
American Free Mission Society, and, in the ex- 
ercise of his agency, visited that state, and took 
occasion to advocate from the pulpit anti-slavery 
sentiments. Not long since, in the village of 
Richmond, Madison county, he applied to several 
churche.s for permission to lecture on the moral 
and religi >us condition of the slaves, but was un- 
successful. February 1st, in the evening, he 
preached to the colored congregation of that place, 
after which lie was assailed by a mob, and driven 
from the town. Returning in a short time, lie 
left a communication respecting the transaction 
at the office of the Richmond Chronicle,^ and again 
departed; but had not gone far before he was 
Overtaken by four men, who seized him, and led 
l/i:ii to an out-of-the-way place, where they^ con- 
sulted as to what they should do with him. They 
resolved to duck biin, ascertaining first that he 
Could swim. Two of them took him and threw 
him into a pond, as far as they could, and, on his 
rising to the surface, bade him come out. lie 
did so, and, on his refusing to promise never to 
c line t 1 Richmond, they flung him in again. This 
operation was repe ited four tim is, when he yielded. 
Chey next demanded of aim a promise that he 
would Leave Kentucky, and never return again. 
11 ■ refused to give it, and they threw him in the 
water six tim is more, when, his strength failing, 
and they threatening to whip him, he gave the 
pledge required, and left the state. 

We do not know anything about Mr. Matthews, 
or his mode of promulgating his views. Thelaws 
in Kentucky for the pr ii icti in of what is called 
" slave property" are stringent enough, and no- 
body can doubt the readiness Of public sentiment 



to enforce their heaviest penalties against offend- 
ers. If Mr. Matthews violated the law, he should 
have been tried by the law ; and he would have 
been, had he committed an illegal act. No 
charge of the kind is made against him. 

He was, then, the victim of Lynch law, ad- 
ministered in a ruffianly manner, and without 
provocation ; and the parties concerned in the 
transaction, whatever their position in society, 
were guilty of conduct as cowardly as it was 
brutal. 

As to the manner in which Mr. Matthews has 
conducted himself in Kentucky we know nothing. 
We transfer to our columns the following extract 
from an editorial in the Journal and Messenger of 
Cincinnati, a Baptist paper, and which, it may 
be presumed, speaks intelligently on the subject; 

" Mr. Matthews is likewise a Baptist minister, 
whose ostensible mission is one of love. If he has 
violated that mission, or any law, he is amen bble 
to God and law, and not to lawless violence. 
His going to Kentucky is a matter of conscience 
'to him, in which he has a right to indulge. 
Many good anti-slavery men would question the 
wisdom of such a step. None would doubt his 
right. Many, as a matter of taste and pro- 
priety, cannot admire the way in which he is re- 
puted to do his work. But they believe he is 
conscientious, and they know that ' oppression 
maketh even a wise man mad.' We do not 
think, in obedience to Christ's commands, he suf- 
ficiently counted the cost. For no one in his 
position should go to Kentucky to agitate the 
question of slavery, unless he expects to die. 
No man in this position, which Mr. Matthews oc- 
cupies, can do it, without falling a martyr. Lib- 
erty of speech and thought is not, cannot be, en- 
joyed in slave states. Slavery could not exist for 
a moment, if it did. It is, doubtless, the duty 
of the Christian not to surrender his life cheaply, 
for the sake of being a martyr. This would be 
an unholy motive. It is his duty to preserve it 
until the last moment. So Christ enjoins. It 
is no mark of cowardice to flee. _ ' When they 
persecute you in one city, flee into another,' 
said the Saviour. But he did not say, Give a 
pledge that you will not exercise your rights. 
Hence, he nor his disciples never did it. But 
it is a question, after one has deliberated, and 
conscientiously entered a community in the_ exer- 
cise of his constitutional ami religious rights, 
whether he should give a pledge, under the fn- 
fluence of a lore of life, never to return. If he 
does, he has not counted the cost. A Christian 
should be as conscientious in pledging solemnly 
not to do what he has an undoubted right t 1 do, 
as he is in laboring for the emancipation of the 
slave." 

The following is from the National Era, 
July 10, 1851. 

Mr. Mc Bride wished to form a church 
of non-slaveholders. 

CASE OF REV. JESSE m'iJRIDE. 

This missionary, it will be remembered, was 
oxpelled lately from the State of North Carolina. 

We give belOW his letter (let riling the e induct 
of the m ib. His letter is d ited Guilford, M iy <». 
After writing that he is suffering from temporary 
illness, be pr ice ids : 

" I would have kept within doors this day, but 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



for the fact that I mistrusted a mob would be out 
to disturb my congregation, though such a hint 
bad not been given me by a human being. About 
six o.'clock this morning I crawled into my carriage 
and drove eighteen miles, which brought me to 
my meeting place, eight miles east of Greensboro', 
— the place I gave an account of a few weeks 
since, — where some seven or eight persons gave 
their names to go into the organization of a Wes- 
leyan Methodist church. Well, sure enough, 
just before meeting time (twelve o'clock) I was in- 
formed that a pack of rioters were on hand, and 
that they had sworn I should not fulfil my ap- 
pointmentthis day. As they had heard nothing 
of this before, the news came upon some of my 
friends like a clap of thunder from a clear sky ; 
they scarcely knew what to do. I told them I 
should go to meeting or die in the attempt, and, 
like ' good soldiers,' they followed. Just before 
I got to the arbor, I saw a man leave the crowd 
and approach me at the left of my path. As I 
was about to pass, he said : 

" ' Mr. McBride, here 's a letter for you.' 
" I took the letter, put it into my pocket, and 
said, ' I have not time to read it until after meet- 
ing.' 

" ' No, you must read it now.' 
" Seeing that I did not stop, he said, ' I want to 
speak to you,' beckoning with his hand, and turn- 
ing, expecting me to follow. 

"'I will talk to you after meeting,' said I, 
pulling out my watch ; ' you see I have no time 
tolspare — it is just twelve.' 

" As I went to go in at the door of the stand, 
a man who had taken his seat on the step rose up, 
placed his hand on me, and said, in a very excited 
tone, 

" ' Mr. McBride, you can't go in here !' 
" Without offering any resistance, or saying a 
word, I knelt down outside the stand, on the 
ground, and prayed to my 'Father;' plead His 
promises, such as, ' When the enemy comes in 
like a flood, I will rear up a standard against' 
him; 'lam a present help in trouble;' ' I will 
fight all your battles for you ;' prayed for grace, 
victory, my enemies, &c. Rose perfectly calm. 
Meantime my enemies cursed and swore some, but 
most of the time they were rather "quiet. Mr. 
Iliatt, a slave-holder and merchant from Greens- 
boro', said, 

" ' You can't preach here to-day; we have 
eome to prevent you. We think you are doing 
harm — violating our laws,' &c. 

" ' From what authority do j r ou thus command 
and prevent me from preaching? Are you au- 
thorized by the civil authority to prevent meV 
" ' No, sir.' • 

" ' Has God sent you, and does he enjoin it on 
you as a duty to stop me?' 

" ' I am unacquainted with Him.' 
" ' Well, ' acquaint now thyself with Him, and 
be at peace;' and he will give you a more honor- 
able business than stopping men from preaching 
his g >spel. The ju Iginent-d ly is coming on, and 
I summon you there, to give an account of this 
day's conduct. And now, gentlemen, if I have 
violatedthe laws of North Carolina, by them I 
am willing to be judged, condemned, and pun- 
ished ; to go to the whipping- post, pillory or jail, 
or even to hug the stake, lint, gentlemen, you 
are not generally a pack of ignoramuses; your 
good sense teaches you tlie impropriety of your 
course ; you know that you are doing wrong ; you 



191 

know that it is not right to trample all law, both 
human and divine, in the dust, out of professed 
love for it. You must see that your course will 
lead to perfect anarchy and confusion. The time 
may come when Jacob Hiatt may be in the mi- 
nority, when his principles may be as unpopular 
as Jesse McBride's are now. What then? Why, 
if your course prevails, he must be lynched — 
whipped, stoned, tarred and feathered, dragged 
from his own house, or his house burned over 
his head, and he perish in the ruins. The per- 
sons became food for the beasts they threw Dan- 
iel to ; the same fire that was kindled for the 
'_ Hebrew children' consumed those who kindled 
it ; Haman stretched the same rope he prepared 
for Mordecai. Yours is a dangerous course, and 
3'ou must reap a retribution, either here or here- 
after. We will sing a hymn,' said I. 
" ' yes,' said EL, ' you may sing'.' 
" ' The congregation will please assist me, as I 
am quite unwell;' and I lined off the hymn, 
' Father, I stre.tch my hands to thee,' &c, rioters 
and all helping to sing. All seemed in good hu- 
mor, and I almost forgot their errand. When we 
closed, I said, ' Let us pray.' 

»' ' G — d d n it, that 's not singing !' said one 

of the company, who stood back pretty well. 

" While we invoked the divine blessing, I think 
many could say, ' It is good for us to be here.' 
Before I rose from my knees, after the friends 
rose, I delivered an exhortation of some ten or 
fifteen minutes, in which I urged the brethren to 
steadfastness, prayer, &c, some of the mob cry- 
ing, ' Lay hold of him !' ' Drag him out !' ' Stop 
him!' &c." 

" My voice being nearly drowned by the tumult, 
I left off. I was then called to have some conver- 
sation with H., who repeated some of the charges 
he preferred at first, — said I was bringing on in- 
surrection, causing disturbance, &c. ; wishing me 
to leave the state ; said he had some slaves, and 
he himself was the most of a slave of any of them, 
had harder times than they had, and he would 
like to be shut of them, and that he was my true 
friend. 

" ' As to your friendship, Mr. H., you have act- 
ed quite friendly, remarkably so — fully as much 
so as Judas when he. kissed the Saviour. As to 
your having to be so much of a slave, I am sorry 
for you ; you ought to be freed. As to insurrec- 
tion, I am decidedly opposed to it, have no sym- 
pathy with it whatever. As to raising disturb, 
ance and leaving the state, I left a little mother- 
less daughter in Ohio, over whom I wished to 
have an oversight and care. When I left, I only 
expected to remain in North Carolina one year ; 
but the people dragged me up before the court un- 
der the charge of felony, put me in bonds, and kept 
me ; and now would you have me leave ury secur- 
ities to suffer, have me lie and deceive the court?' 

" ' ! if you will leave, your bail will not 
have to sutler ; that can, I think, be settled with- 
out much trouble,' said Mr II. 

" ' They shall not have trouble on my account,' 
said I. 

" After talking with Mr. II. and one or two 
more on personal piety, &c, I went to the arbor, 
took my seat in the door of the stand for a min- 
ute ; then rose, and, after referring to a few texts 
of Scripture, t> show that all those who will live 
godly shall suff.T persecution, I inquired, 1st, 
What is persecution? 2ndly, noticed the fact, 
' shall suffer ;' gave a synoptical history of per- 



192 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



secution, by showing that Abel was the first mar- 
tyr for the right — the Israelites"' sufferings. The 
prophets were stoned, were sawn asunder, were 
tempted, were slain with the sword, had to wan- 
der in deserts, mountains, dens and caves of the 
earth, were driven from their houses, given to fe- 
rocious beasts, lashed to the stake, and destroyed 
in different ways. Spoke of John the Baptist ; 
showed how he was persecuted, and what the 
charge. Christ was persecuted for doing what 
John was persecuted for not doing. Spoke of the 
sufferings of the apostles, and their final death ; 
of Luther and his coadjutors ; of the Wesleys 
and early Methodists ; of Fox and the early Qua- 
kers ; of the early settlers in the colonies of the 
United States. Noticed why the righteous were 
persecuted, the advantages thereof to the right- 
eous themselves, and how they should treat their 
persecutors — with kindness, &c. Spoke, I sup- 
pose, some half an hour, and dismissed. Towards 
the close, some of the rioters got quite angry, and 
yelled, 'Stop him!' 'Pull him out!' 'The 
righteous were never persecuted for d d aboli- 
tionism,' &c. Some of them paid good attention 
to what I said. And thus we spent the time from 
twelve to three o'clock, and thus the meeting 
passed by. 

" Brother dear, I am more and more confirmed 
in the righteousness of our cause. I would rather, 
much rather, die for good principles, than to have 
applause and honor for propagating false theories 
and abominations, You perhaps would like to 
know how I feel. Happy, most of the time ; a 
religion that will not stand persecution will not 



take us to heaven. Blessed be God, that I have 
not, thus far, been suffered to deny Him. Some- 
times I have thought that I was nearly home. I 
generally feel a calmness of soul, but sometimes 
my enjoyments are rapturous. I have had a great 
burden of prayer for the dear flock ; help me pray 
for them. Thank God, I have not heard of one 
of them giving up or turning ; and I believe some, 
if not most of them, would go to the stake rather 
than give back. I forgot to say I read a part of 
the fifth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles to 
the rioters, commencing at the 17th verse. I told 
them, if their institutions were of God, I could not 
harm them ; that if our cause was of God, they 
could not stop it — that they could kill me, but 
they could not kill the truth. Though I talked 
plainly, I talked and felt kindly to them. 

" I have had to write in such haste, and being 
fatigued and unwell, my letter is disconnected. 
I meant to give you a copy of the letter of tho 
mob. Here it is : 

" ' Mr. McBride: 

" ' We, the subscribers, very and most respect- 
fully request you not to attempt to fulfil your 
appointment at this place. If you do, you will 
surely be interrupted. 

»« May 6, 1851.' . [Signed by 32 persons.] 

" Some were professors of religion — Presbyte- 
rians, Episcopal Methodists, and Methodist Prot- 
estants. One of the latter was an ' exhorter.' I 
understand some of the crowd were negro traders. 
"Farewell, J. McBride." 



PART IV. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE INFLUENCE OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH 
ON SLAVERY. 

There is no country in the Avorld where 
the religious influence has' a greater ascend- 
ency than in America. There is no country 
where the clergy are more powerful. This 
is the more remarkable, because in Amer- 
ica religion is entirely divorced from the 
state, and the clergy have none of those 
artificial means for supporting their influ- 
ence which result from rank and wealth. 
Taken as a body of men, the American 
clergy are generally poor. The salaries 
given to them afford only a bare support, 
and yield them no means of acquiring prop- 
erty. Their style of living can be barely 
decent and respectable, and no more. The 
fact that, under these circumstances, the 
American clergy are probably the most pow- 
erful body of men in the country, is of itself 
a strong presumptive argument in their fa- 
vor. It certainly argues in them, as a class, 
both intellectual and moral superiority. 

It is a well-known fact that the influence 
of the clergy is looked upon by our states- 
men as a most serious element in making 
up their political combinations; and that 
that influence is so great, that no statesman 
would ever undertake to carry a measure 
against which all the clergy of the country 
should unite. Such a degree of power, 
though it be only a power of opinion, argu- 
ment and example, is not without its dan- 
gers to the purity of any body of men. To 
be courted by political partisans is always 
a dangerous thing for the integrity and 
spirituality of men who profess to be gov- 
erned by principles which are not of this 
world. The possession, too, of so great a 
power as we have described, involves a most 
weighty responsibility ; since, if the clergy 
do possess the power to rectify any great 
national immorality, the fact of its not being 
13 



done seems in some sort to bring the sin 
of the omission to their door. 

We have spoken, thus far, of the clergy 
alone; but in America, where the clergy- 
man is, in most denominations, elected by 
the church, and supported by its voluntary 
contributions, the influence of the church and 
that of the clergy are, to a very great extent, 
identical. The clergyman is the very ideal 
and expression of the church. They choose 
him, and retain him, because he expresses 
more perfectly than any other man they can 
obtain, their ideas of truth and right. The 
clergyman is supported, in all cases, by his 
church, or else he cannot retain his position 
in it. The fact of his remaining there is 
generally proof of identity of opinion, since, 
if he differed very materially from them, 
they have the power to withdraw from him, 
and choose another. 

The influence of a clergyman, thus re- 
tained by the free consent of the under- 
standing and heart of his church, is in some 
respects greater even than that of a papal 
priest. The priest can control only by a 
blind spiritual authority, to which, very 
often, the reason demurs, while it yields an 
outward assent; but, the successful free 
minister takes captive the affections of the 
heart by his affections, overrules the rea- 
soning powers by superior strength of rea- 
son, and thus, availing himself of affection, 
reason, conscience, and the entire man, pos- 
sesses a power, from the very freedom of the 
organization, greater than can ever result 
from blind spiritual despotism. If a minis- 
ter cannot succeed in doing this to some 
good extent in a church, he is called unsuc- 
cessful ; and he who realizes this description 
most perfectly has the highest and most 
perfect kind of power, and expresses the 
idea of a successful American minister. ^ 

In speaking, therefore, of this subject, 
we shall speak of the church and the clergy 
as identical, using the word church in the 
American sense of the word, for that class 



194 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



of men, of all denominations, who are or- 
ganized in bodies distinct from nominal 
Christians, as professing to be actually con- 
trolled by the precepts of Christ. 

What, then, is the influence of the church 
on this great question of slavery? 

Certain things are evident on the very 
face of the matter. 

1. It has not put an end to it. 

2. It has not prevented the increase of it. 

3. It has not occasioned the repeal of the 
laws which forbid education to the slave. 

4. It has not attempted to have laws 
passed forbidding the separation of families 
and legalizing the marriage of slaves. 

5. It has not stopped the internal slave- 
trade. 

6. It has not prevented the extension of 
this system, with all its wrongs, over new 
territories. 

With regard to these assertions it is pre- 
sumed there can be no difference of opinion. 
What, then, have they done ? 
In reply to this, it can be stated, 

1. That almost every one of the leading 
denominations have, at some time, in their 
collective capacity, expressed a decided dis- 
approbation of the system, and recommended 
that something should be done with a view 
to its abolition. 

2. One denomination of Christians has 
pursued such a course as entirely, and in 
fact, to free every one of its members from 
any participation in slave-holding. We 
refer to the Quakers. The course by which 
this result has been effected will be shown 
by a pamphlet soon to be issued by the 
poet J. G. Whittier, one of their own body. 

3. Individual members, in all denomi- 
nations, animated by the spirit of Chris- 
tianity, have in various ways entered their 
protest against it. 

It will be well now to consider more defi- 
nitely and minutely the sentiments which 
some leading ecclesiastical bodies in the 
church have expressed on this subject 

It is fair that the writer should state the 
sources from which the quotations are drawn. 
Those relating to the action of Southern judi- 
catories are principally from a pamphlet com- 
piled by the lion. -James (J. Birney, and enti- 
tled " The Church the Bulwark of Slavery." 
The writer addressed a letter to Mr. Birney, 
in which she inquired the sources from which 
lie compiled. 1 1 is reply was, in substance, 
as follows : That the pamphlet was compiled 
from original documents, or files of news- 
papers, which had recorded these transactions 
at the time of their occurrence. It was 



compiled and published in England, in 1842, 
with a view of leading the people there to un- 
derstand the position of the American church 
and clergy. Mr. Birney says that, although 
the statements have long been before the 
world, he has never known one of them to 
be disputed; that, knowing the extraordi- 
nary nature of the sentiments, he took the 
utmost pains to authenticate them. 

We will first present those of the South- 
ern States. 

1. The Presbyterian Church. 

HARMONY PRESBYTERY, OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 

Whereas, sundry persons in Scotland and Eng- 
land, and others in the north, east and west of 
our country, have denounced slavery as obnoxious 
to the laws of God, some of whom have presented 
before the General Assembly of our church, and 
the Congress of the nation, memorials and peti- 
tions, with the avowed object of bringing into 
disgrace slave-holders, and abolishing the relation 
of master and slave : And whereas, from the said 
proceedings, and the statements, reasonings and 
circumstances connected therewith, it is most 
manifest that those persons " know not what they 
say, nor whereof they affirm;" and with this 
ignorance discover a spirit of self-righteousness 
and exclusive sanctity, &c, therefore, 

1. Resolved, That'as the kingdom of our Lord 
is not of this world, His church, as such, has no 
right to abolish, alter, or affectany institution or 
ordinance of men, political or civil, &c. 

2. Resolved, That slavery lias existed from the 
days of those good old slave-holders and patriarchs, 
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (who are now in the 
kingdom of heaven), to the time when the apostle 
Paul sent a runaway home to his master Philemon, 
and wrote a Christian and fraternal letter to this 
slave-holder, which we find still stands in the 
canon of the Scriptures ; and that slavery has 
existed ever since the days of the apostle, and 
docs now exist. 

3. Resolved, That as the relative duties of 
master and slave are taught in the Scriptures, in 
the same manner as those of parent and child, and 
husband and wife, the existence of slaveryitself 
is not opposed to the will of God ; and whosoever 
has a conscience too tender to recognize this rela- 
tion as lawful is "righteous over much,'' is 
" who above what is written," and lias submitted 
his neck to the yoke of men, sacrificed his ( Ihris- 
tian liberty of conscience, and leaves the infallible 
word of God for the fancies and doctrines of men. 



THE CHARLESTON UNION PRESBYTERY. 

It is a principle which meets the views of this 
body, that slavery, as it exists aiming us, is a 
political institution, with which ecclesiastical ju- 
dicatories have not the smallest right to interfere ; 
and in relation to which, any such interference, 
especially at the present momentous crisis, would 
bo morally wrong, and fraught with the most 
dangerous and pernicious consequences. The sen- 
timents which ioe maintain, in common with Chris- 
tians at t/ie South of every denomination, are 
sentiments which so fully approve themselves to 
our consciences, are so identified with our solemn 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



195 



convictions of duty, that we should maintain them 
under any circumstances. 

Resolved, That in the opinion of this Presbytery, 
the holding of slaves, so far from being a six in 
the sight of God, is nowhere condemned in his 
holy word ; that it is in accordance with the 
example, or consistent with the precepts, of patri- 
archs, apostles and prophets, and that it is com- 
patible with the most fraternal regard to the best 
good of those servants whom God may have 
committed to our charge. 

The New-sehool Presbyterian Church in 
Petersburg!!, Virginia, Nov. 16, 1888, passed 
the following : 

Whereas, the General Assembly did, in the 
year 1818, pass a law which contains provisions 
for slaves irreconcilable with our civil institutions, 
and solemnly declaring slavery to be sin against 
God — a law at once offensive and insulting to the 
whole Southern community, 

1. Resolved, That, as slave-holders, we can- 
not consent longer to remain in connection with 
any church where there exists a statute conferring 
the right upon slaves to arraign their masters be- 
fore the judicatory of the church — and that, too, for 
the act of. selling them without their consent first had 
and obtained. 

2. Resolved, That, as the Great Head of the 
church has recognized the relation of master and 
slave, we conscientiously believe that slavery is 
not a sin against God, as declared by the General 
Assembly, 

This sufficiently indicates the opinion of 
the Southern Presbyterian Church. The 
next extracts will refer to the opinions of 
Baptist Churches. In 1835 the Charles- 
ton Baptist Association addressed a memo- 
rial to the Legislature of South Carolina, 
which contains the following : 

The undersigned would further represent that 
the said association does not consider that the 
Holy Scriptures have made the fact of slavery a 
question, of ?norals at all. The Divine Author of 
our holy religion, in particular, found slavery a 
part of the existing institutions of society ; with 
which, if not sinful, it was not his design to inter- 
meddle, but to leave them entirely to the control 
of men. Adopting this, therefore, as one of the 
allowed arrangements of society, he made it the 
province of his religion only to prescribe the re- 
ciprocal duties of the relation. The question, it 
is believed, is purely one of political economy. It 
amounts, in effect, to this, — Whether the operatives 
of a country shall be bought and sold, and themselves 
become property, as in this state ; or whether they 
shall be hirelings, and their labor only become prop- 
erly, as in some other slates. In other words, 
whether an employer may buy the whole time of 
laborersat once, of those who* have a right to dis- 
pose of it, with a permanent relation of protection 
and care over them ; or whether he shall be re- 
stricted to buy it in certain portions only, subject, 
to their control, and with no such permanent rela- 
tion of care and protection. The right of masters 
to dispose of the lime of their slaves has been distinctly 
recognized by the Creator of all things, who is surely 
at liberty to vest the right of property over any 
object in whomsoever he pleases. That the lawful 



possessor should retain this right at will, is no 
more against the law3 of society and good morals, 
than that he should retain the personal endow- 
ments with which his Creator has blessed him, or 
the money and lands inherited from his ancestors, 
or acquired by his industry. And neither society 
nor individuals have any more authority to de- 
mand a relinquishment, without an equivalent, in 
the one case, than in the other. 

As it is a question purely of political economy, 
and one which in this country is reserved to the 
cognizance of the state governments severally, it 
is further believed, that the State of South Caro- 
lina alone has the right to regulate the existence 
and condition of slavery within her territorial 
limits ; and we should resist to the utmost every 
invasion of this right, come from what quarter 
and under whatever pretence it may. 

The Methodist Church is, in some re- 
spects, peculiarly situated upon this subject, 
because its constitution and book of discipline 
contain the most vehement denunciations 
against slavery of which language is capable, 
and the most stringent requisitions that all 
members shall be disciplined for the holding 
of slaves ; and these denunciations and re- 
quisitions have been reaffirmed by its Gen- 
eral Conference. 

It seemed to be necessary, therefore, for 
the Southern Conference to take some notice 
of this fact, which they did, with great cool- 
ness and distinctness, as follows : 

THE GEORGIA ANNUAL CONFERENCE. 

Resolved, unanimously, That, whereas there is 
a clause in the discipline of our church which 
states that we are as much as ever convinced of 
the great evil ot slavery ; and whereas the said 
clause has been perverted by some, and used in 
such a manner as to produce the impression that 
the Methodist Episcopal Church believed slavery 
to be a moral evil ; — 

Therefore Resolved, That it is the sense of the 
Georgia Annual Conference that slavery, as it 
exists in the United States, is not a moral evil. 

Resolved, That we view slavery as a civil and 
domestic institution, and one with which, as min- 
isters of Christ, we have nothing to do, further 
than to ameliorate the condition of the slave, by 
endeavoring to impart to him and his master the 
benign influences of the religion of Christ, and 
aiding both on their way to heaven. 

On motion, it was Resolved, unanimously, 
That the Georgia Annual Conference regard with 
feelings of profound respect and approbation the 
dignified course pursued by our several superintend- 
ents, or bishops, in suppressing the attempts that 
have been made by various individuals to get up 
and protract an excitement in the churches and 
country on the subject of abolitionism. 

Resolved, further, That they shall have our cor- 
dial and zealous support in sustaining them in the 
ground they have taken. 

SOUTH CAROLINA CONFERENCE. 

The Rev. W. Martin introduced resolu- 
tions similar to those of the Georgia Con- 
ference. 



196 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



The Rev. W. Capers, D.D., after ex- 
pressing his conviction that " the sentiment 
of the resolutions was universally held, not 
only by the ministers of that conference, but 
of the whole South;" and after stating that 
the only true doctrine was, " it belongs, to 
Cassar, and not to the church," offered the 
following as a substitute : 

Whereas, we hold that the subject of slavery in 
these United States is not one proper for the 
action of the church, but is exclusively appropri- 
ate to the civil authorities, 

Therefore Resolved, That this conference will 
not intermeddle with it, further than to express 
our regret that it has ever been introduced, in any 
form, into any one of the judicatures of the 
church. 

Brother Martin accepted the substitute. 

Brother Betts asked whether the substitute was 
intended as implying that slavery, as it exists 
among us, was not a moral evil ? He understood it 
as equivalent to such a declaration. 

Brother Capers explained that his intention was 
to convey that sentiment fully and unequivocally ; 
and that he had chosen the form of the substitute 
for the purpose, not only of reproving some wrong 
doings at the North, but with reference also to the 
General Conference. If slavery were a moral evil 
(that is, sinful), the church would be bound to take 
cognizance of it ; but our affirmation is, that it is 
not a matter for her jurisdiction, but is exclusively 
appropriate to the civil government, and of course 
not sinful. 

The substitute was then unanimously 
adopted. 

In 1836, an Episcopal clergyman in North 
Carolina, of the name of Freeman, preached, 
in the presence of his bishop (Rev. Levi. S. 
Ives, D.D., a native of a free state), two ser- 
mons on the rights and duties of slave-hold- 
ers. In these he essayed to justify from 
the Bible the slavery both of white men 
and negroes, and insisted that " without a 
new revelation from heaven, no man was 
authorized to pronounce slavery wrong." 
The sermons were printed in a pamphlet, 
prefaced with a letter to Mr. Freeman from 
the Bishop of North Carolina, declaring that 
he had " listened with most unfeigned pleas- 
ure " to his discourses, and advised their 
publication, as being " urgently called for at 
the present time." 

"The Protestant Episcopal Society for 
the advancement of Christianity (!) in South 
Carolina " thought it expedient to repub- 
lish Mr. Freeman's pamphlet as a religious 
tract ! * 

Afterwards, when the addition of the new 
State of Texas made it important to organize 
the Episcopal Church there, this Mr. Free- 
man was made Bishop of Texas. 

* Birncy's pamphlet. 



The question may now arise, — it must 
arise to every intelligent thinker in Chris- 
tendom, — Can it be possible that American 
slavery, as defined by its laws, and the 
decisions of its courts, including all the hor- 
rible abuses that the laws ' recognize and 
sanction, is considered to be a right and 
proper institution? Do these Christians 
merely recognize the relation of slavery, in 
the abstract, as one that, under proper legis- 
lation, might be made a good one, or do 
they justify it as it actually exists in 
America 1 

It is a fact that there is a large party at 
the South who justify not only slavery in 
the abstract, but slavery just as it exists in 
America, in whole and in part, and even its 
worst abuses. 

There are four legalized parts or results 
of the system, which are of especial atrocity. 

They are, — 

1. The prohibition of the testimony of 
colored people in cases of trial. 

2. The forbidding of education. ■ 

3. The internal slave-trade. 

4. The consequent separation of families. 
We shall bring evidence to show that 

every one of these practices has been either 
defended on principle, or recognized without 
condemnation, by decisions of judicatories of 
churches, or by writings of influential cler- 
gymen, without any expression of dissent 
being made to their opinions by the bodies 
to which they belong. 

In the first place, the exclusion of colored 
testimony in the church. In 1840, the 
General Conference of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church passed the following resolu- 
tion: "That it is inexpedient and 

UNJUSTIFIABLE FOR ANY PREACHER TO 
PERMIT COLORED PERSONS TO GIVE TES- 
TIMONY AGAINST WHITE PERSONS IN ANY 
STATE WHERE THEY ARE DENIED THAT 
PRIVILEGE BY LAW." 

This was before the Methodist Church 
had separated on the question of slavery, as 
they subsequently did, into Northern and 
Southern Conferences. Both Northern and 
Southern members voted for this resolution. 

After this was passed, the conscience of 
many Northern ministers was aroused, and 
they called for a reconsideration. The South- 
ern members imperiously demanded that it 
should remain as a compromise and test of 
union. The spirit of the discussion may be 
inferred from one extract. 

Mr. Peck, of New York, who moved the 
reconsideration of the resolution, thus ex- 
pressed himself: 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



197 



That resolution (said he) was introduced under 
peculiar-circumstances, during considerable excite- 
ment, and he went for it as a peace-offering to the 
South, without sufficiently reflecting upon the pre- 
cise import of its phraseology ; but, after a little 
deliberation, he was sorry ; and he had been sorry 
but once, and that was all the time ; he was con- 
vinced that, if that resolution remain upon the 
journal, it would be disastrous to the whole Northern 
church. 

Rev. Dr. A. J. Few, of Georgia, the 
mover of the original resolution, then rose. 
The following are extracts from his speech. 
The Italics are the writers. 

Look at it! "What do you declare to us, in 
taking this course? Why, simply, as much as to 
say, "We cannot sustain you in the condition 
which you cannot avoid!" We cannot sustain 
you in the necessary conditions of slave-holding ; 
one of its necessary conditions being the rejection 
of negro testimony ! If it is not sinful to hold 
slaves, under all circumstances, it is not sinful to 
hold them in the only condition, and under the only 
circumstances, which they can be held. The rejec- 
tion of negro testimony is one of the necessary 
circumstances under which shave-holding can 
exist; indeed, it is utterly impossible for it to 
exist without it ; therefore it is not sinful to hold 
slaves in the condition and under the circumstances 
which they are held at the South, inasmuch as they 
can be held under no other circumstances. * * * If 
you believe that slave-holding is necessarily sinful, 
come out with the abolitionists, and honestly say 
so. If you believe that slave-holding is necessa- 
rily sinful, you believe we are necessarily sinners : 
and, if so, come out and honestly declare it, and 
let us leave you. * * * We want to know distinctly, 
precisely and honestly, the position which you 
take. We cannot be tampered with by you any 
longer. We have had enough of it. We are 
tired of your sickly sympathies. * * * If you are 
not opposed to the principles which it involves, 
unite with us, like honest men, and go home, and 
boldly meet the consequences. We say again, 
you are responsible for this state of things ; for it 
is you who have driven us to the alarming point 
where we find ourselves. * * * You have made 
that resolution absolutely necessary to the quiet 
of the South! But you now revoke that resolu- 
tion ! And you pass the Rubicon ! Let me not be 
misunderstood. I say, you pass the Rubicon ! If 
you revoke, you revoke the principle which that 
resolution involves, and you array the whole South 
against you, and we must separate! * * * If you 
accord to the principles which it involves, arising 
from the necessity of the case, stick by it, 
"though the heavens perish !" But, if you per- 
sist on reconsideration, I ask in what light will 
your course be regarded in the South ? What 
will be the conclusion, there, in reference to it? 
Why, that you cannot sustain us as long o,s we 
hold slaves ! It will declare, in the face of the 
sun, " We cannot sustain you, genilemen, while 
you retain your slaves ! " Your opp tsition to the 
resolution is based upon your opposition to 
slavery ; you cannot, therefore, maintain your 
consistency, unless you come out with the aboli- 
tionists, and condemn us at once and forever; or 
else refuse to reconsider. 



The resolution was therefore left in force, 
with another resolution appended to it, ex- 
pressing the undiminished regard of the 
General Conference for the colored popu- 
lation. 

It is quite evident that it was undi- 
minished, for the best of reasons. That 
the colored population were not properly 
impressed with this last act of condescension, 
appears from the fact that "the official 
members of the Sharp-street and Asbury 
Colored Methodist Church in Baltimore" 
protested and petitioned against the mo- 
tion. The following is a passage from their 
address : 

The adoption of such a resolution, by our highest 
ecclesiastical judicatory, — a judicatory composed 
of the most experienced and wisest brethren in the 
church, the choice selection of twenty-eight An- 
nual Conferences, — has inflicted, we fear, an irre- 
parable injury upon eighty thousand souls for 
whom Christ died — souls, who, by this act of 
your body, have been stripped of the dignity of 
Christians, degraded in the scale of humanity, and 
treated as criminals, for no other reason than the 
color of their skin ! Your resolution has, in our 
humble opinion, virtually declared, that a mere 
physical peculiarity, the handiwork of our all- 
wise and benevolent Creator, is prima facie evi- 
dence of incompetency to tell the truth, or is an 
unerring indication of unworthiness to bear testi- 
mony against a fellow-being whose skin is de- 
nominated white. * * * 

Brethren, out of the abundance of the heart we 
have spoken. Our grievance is before you! If 
you have any regard for the salvation of the 
eighty thousand immortal souls committed to your 
care ; if you would not thrust beyond the pale of 
the church twenty-five hundred souls in this city, 
who have felt determined never to leave the church 
that has nourished and brought them up ; if you 
regard us as children of one common Father, and 
can, upon reflection, sympathize with us as mem- 
bers of the body of Christ, — if you would not 
incur the fearful, the tremendous responsibility 
of offending not only one, but many thousands of 
his " little ones," we conjure you to wipe from 
your journal the odious resolution which is ruin- 
ing our people. 

"A Colored Baltimorean." writing to the 
editor of Z "tori's Watchman, says : 

The address was presented to one of the secre- 
taries, a delegate of the Baltimore Conference, 
and subsequently given by him to the bishops. 
How many of the members of the conference paw 
it, I know not. One thing is certain, it ivas not 
read to the conference. 

With regard to the second head, — of de- 
fending the laws which prevent the slave 
from being taught to read and write, — we 
have the following instance. 

In the year 1835, the Chillicothe Pres- 
bytery, Ohio, addressed a Christian remon- 
strance to the presbytery of Mississippi on 



198 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



the subject of slavery, in which they spe- J 
cincally enumerated the respects in which 
they considered it tP he unchristian. The 
eighth resolution was as follows : 

That any member of our church, who shall 
advocate or speak in favor of such laws as have 
been or may yet be enacted, for the purpose of 
keeping the slaves in ignorance, and preventing 
them from learning to read the word of God, is 
o-uilty of a great sin, and ought to be dealt with 
as for other scandalous crimes. 

This remonstrance was answered by Rev. 
James Smylie, stated clerk of the Missis- 
sippi Presbytery, and afterwards of the 
Amity Presbytery of Louisiana, in a pam- 
phlet of eighty-seven pages, in which he 
defended slavery generally and particularly, 
in the same manner in which all other 
abuses have always been defended — by the 
word of God. The tenth section of this 
pamphlet is devoted to the defence of this 
law. He devotes seven pages of fine print 
to this object. He says (p. 63) : 

There are laws existing in both states, Missis- 
sippi and Louisiana, accompanied with heavy 
penal sanctions, prohibiting the teaching of the 
slaves to read, and ?neeting the approbation of the 
religious part of the reflecting community. 

# # # * * 

He adds, still further : 

The laws preventing the slaves from learning to 
read are a fruitful source of much ignorance and 
immorality among the slaves. The printing, pub- 
lishing, and circulating of abolition and emanci- 
patory principles in those states, was the cause of 
the passage of those laws. 

He then goes on to say that the ignorance 
and vice which are the consequence of those 
la ws do not properly belong to those who made 
the laws, but to those whose emancipating 
doctrines rendered them necessary. Speak- 
ing of these consequences of ignorance and 
vice, he says : 

Qpi m whom must they be saddled ? If you will 
allow me to answer the question, I will answer 
by saying, Upon such great and good men as John 
Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, Bishop Porteus, 
Paley jlnrslry, Scott, Clark, Wilberforce, Sbarpe, 
Clarkson, Fox, Johnson, Burke, and other great 
and good men, who. without examining the word 
of God, have concluded that it is a true maxim 
that slavery is in itself sinful. 

He then illustrates the necessity of these 
laws by the following simile, lie supposes 
that the doctrine had been promulgated 
that the authority of parents was an unjust 
usurpation, and that it was getting a general 
hold of society; that societies were being 
formed for the emancipation of children from 
the control of their parents; that all books 



were beginning to be pervaded by this senti- 
ment ; and that, under all these influences, 
children were becoming restless and frac- 
tious. He supposes that, under these cir- 
cumstances, parents meet and refer the 
subject to legislators. He thus describes 
the dilemma of the legislators : 

These meet, and they take the subject seriously 
and solemnly into consideration. On the one 
hand, they perceive that, if their children had 
access to these doctrines, they were ruined forever. 
To let them have access to them was unavoidable, 
if they taught them to read. To prevent their 
being taught to read was cruel, and would pre- 
venAhem from obtaining as much knowledge of 
the laws of Heaven as otherwise they might enjoy. 
In this sad dilemma, sitting and consulting in a 
legislative capacity, they must, of two evils, choose 
the least. With indignant feelings towards those, 
who, under the influence of "seducing spirits," 
had sent and were sending among them " doc- 
trines of devils," but with aching hearts towards 
their children, they resolved that their children 
should not be taught to read, until the storm 
should be overblown ; hoping that Satan's being let 
loose will be but for a little season. And during 
this season they will have to teach them orally, 
and thereby guard against their being contami- 
nated by these wicked doctrines. 

So much for that law. 

Now, as for the internal slave-trade, — 
the very essence of that trade is the buying 
and selling of human beings for the mere 
jmrposes of gain. 

A master who has slaves transmitted to 
him, or a master who buys slaves with the 
purpose of retaining them on his plantation 
or in his family, can be supposed to have 
some object in it besides the mere purpose 
of gain. He may be supposed, in certain 
cases, to have some regard to the happiness 
or well-being of the slave. The trader 
buys and sells for the mere purpose of 
gain. 

Concerning this abuse the Chillicothe 
Presbytery, in the document to which we 
have alluded, passed the following resolution : 

Resolved, That the buying, selling, or holding 
of a slave, for the sake of gain, is a heinous sin 
and scandal, requiring the cognizance of the judi- 
catories of the church. 

In the reply from which we have already 
quoted, Mr. Smylie says (p. 13) : 

Jf the buying, selling and holding of a slave for 
the sake of gain, is, as you say, a heinous sin and 
scandal, then verily three-fourths of all Episcopa- 
lians, .Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians, in 
the eleven states of the Union, are of the devil. 



Again : 

To question whether slave-holders or slave-buy- 
ers are of the devil, seems to me like calling in 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



199 



question whether God is or is not a true witness ; 
that is, provided it is God's testimony, and not 
merely the testimony of the Chillieothe Presbytery, 
that it is a " heinous - sin and scandal" to buy, sell 
and hold slaves. 

Again (p. 21) : 

If language can convey a clear and definite 
meaning at all, I know not how it can more 
plainly or unequivocally present to the mind any 
thought or idea, than the twenty-fifth chapter of 
Leviticus clearly and unequivocally establishes 
the fact that slavery was sanctioned by God him- 
self, and that buying, selling, holding and be- 
queathing slaves, as property, are regulations which 
are established by himself'. 

What language can more explicitly show, not 
that God winked at slavery merely, but that, to 
sav the least, he gave a written, permit to the He- 
brews, then the best people in the world, to buy, 
hold and bequeath, men and ivomen, to perpetual 
servitude ? What, now, becomes of the position 
of the Chillieothe Presbytery ? * * * * Is 
it, indeed, a fact, that God once gave a written per- 
mission to his own dear people [" ye shall buy'''] to 
do that which is in itself sinful ? Nay, to do that 
which the Chillieothe Presbytery says " is a hei- 
nous sin and scandal " ? 



God resolves that his own children may, or 
rather " shall" " buy, possess and hold," bond- 
men and bond- women, in bondage, forever. But 
the Chillieothe Presbytery resolves that " buying, 
selling, or holding slaves, for the sake of gain, is a 
heinous sin and scandal." 

We do not mean to say that Mr. Smylie 
had the internal slave-trade directly in his 
mind in writing these sentences ; but we do 
say that no slave-trader would ask for a 
more explicit justification of his trade than 
this. 

Lastly, in regard to that dissolution of 
the marriage relation, which is the neces- 
sary consequence of this kind of trade, the 
following decisions have been made by ju- 
dicatories of the church. 

The Savannah River (Baptist) Associa- 
tion, in 1835, in reply to the question, 

Whether, in a case of involuntary separation, 
of such a character as to preclude all prospect 
of future intercourse, the parties ought to be al- 
lowed to marry again ? 

answered, 

That such a separation, among persons situated 
as our slaves are, is civilly a separation by death, 
and they believe that, in the sight of God, it 
would be so viewed. To forbid second marriages, 
in such, cases, would be to expose the parties, not 
only to stronger hardships and strong temptation, 
but to church censure, for acting in obedience to 
their masters, who cannot be expected to acquiesce 
in a regulation at variance with justice to the 
slaves, and to the spirit of that command which 
regulates marriage among Christians. The slaves 
arc not free agents, and a dissolution by death is 



not more entirely without their consent, and be- 
yond their control, than by such separation. 

At the Shiloh Baptist Association, which 
met at Gourdvine, a few years since, the 
following query, says the Religious Her- 
ald, was presented from Hedgman church, 
viz : 

Is a servant, whose husband or wife has been 
sold by his or her master into a distant country, 
to be permitted to marry again ? 

The query was referred to a committee, 
who made the following report ; which, after 
discussion, was adopted : 

That, in view of the circumstances in which 
servants in this country are placed, the committee 
are unanimous in the opinion that it is better to 
permit servants thus circumstanced to take another 
husband or wife. 

The Reverend Charles C. Jones, who was 
an earnest and indefatigable laborer for the 
good of the slave, and one who, it would be 
supposed, would be likely to feel strongly on 
this subject, if any one would, simply re- 
marks, in estimating the moral condition of 
the negroes, that, as husband and wife are 
subject to all the vicissitudes of property, 
and may be separated by division of estate, 
debts, sales or removals, &c. &c, the marriage 
relation naturally loses much of its sacred- 
ness, and says : 

It is a contract of convenience, profit or pleas- 
ure, that may be entered into and dissolved at 
the will of the parties, and that without heinous 
sin, or injury to the property interests of any 
one. 



In this sentence 
suppose, the 



he 



is expressing, as we 
common idea of slaves and 
masters of the nature of this institution, 
and not his own. We infer this from the 
fact that he endeavors in his catechism to 
impress on the slave the sacredness and per- 
petuity of the relation. But, when the 
most pious and devoted men that the South 
has, and those professing to spend their 
lives for the service of the slave, thus 
calmly, and without any reprobation, con- 
template this state of things as a state with 
which Christianity does not call on them to 
interfere, what can be expected of the world 
in general 1 

It is to be remarked, with regard to the 
sentiments of Mr. Smylie's pamphlet, that 
they are endorsed in the appendix by a 
document in the name of two presbyteries, 
which document, though with less minute- 
ness of investigation, takes the same ground 
with Mr. Smyhe. This Rev. James Smylie 



200 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



was one "who. in company with the Rev. 
John L. Montgomery, was appointed by the 
synod of Mississippi, in 1839, to write or 
compile a catechism for the instruction of 
the negroes. 

Mr. Jones says, in his "History of the 
Religious Instruction of the Negroes " (p. 
83) : " The Rev. James Smylie and the 
Rev. C. Blair are engaged in this good 
work (of enlightening the negroes) sys- 
tematically and constantly in Mississippi." 
The former clergyman is characterized as 
an " aged and indefatigable father." " His 
success in enlightening the negroes has been 
very great. A large proportion of the 
negroes in his old church can recite both 
Williston's and the Westminster Catechism 
very accurately." The writer really wishes 
that it were in her power to make copious 
extracts from Mr. Smylie's pamphlet. A 
great deal could be learned from it as to what 
style of mind, and habits of thought, and 
modes of viewing religious subjects, are 
likely to grow itp under such an institution. 
The man is undoubtedly and heartily sin- 
cere in his opinions, and appears to main- 
tain them with a most abounding and tri- 
umphant joy fulness, as the very latest 
improvement in theological knowledge. We 
are tempted to present a part of his Intro- 
duction, simply for the light it gives us on 
the style of thinking which is to be found 
on our south-western waters : 

In presenting the following review to the pub- 
lic, the author was not entirely or mainly influ- 
enced by a desire or hope to correct the views of 
the Chillicothe Presbytery. He hoped the publi- 
cation would be of essential service to others, as 
well as to the presbytery. 

From his intercourse with religious societies of 
all denominations, in Mississippi and Louisiana, he 
was aware that the abolition maxim, namely, thai 
slavery it in itself sinful, had gained on and en- 
twined itself among the religious and conscien- 
tious scruples of many in the community so far 
as not only to render them unhappy, but to draw 
off the attention from the great and important 
duty of a householder to his household. The eye 
of the mind, resting on slavery itself as a corrupt 
fountain, from which, of necessity, nothing but 
corrupt streams eoiuM flow, was incessantly em- 
ployed in search of some plan by which, with 
safety, the fountain could, in some future time, be 
entirely dried up; never reflecting, or dreaming, 
that slavery, in itself considered, was an innox- 
ious relation, and that the whole error rested in 
the neglect of the relative duties of the relation. 

If there be a consciousness of ^uilt resting on 
the mind, it is all the same, as to tin' effect, 

whether the conscience is or is not right. Al- 
though the word of God alone ought to he the 
guide of conscience, yet it is not always the ease. 
Hence, conscientious scruples sometimes exist for 
neglecting to do that which the word of God con- 
uemus. 



The Bornean who neglects to kill his father, 
and to cat him with his dates, when he has become 
old, is sorely tortured by the wringings of a guilty 
conscience, wdien his filial tenderness and sympa- 
thy have gained the ascendency over his appre- 
hended duty of killing his parent. In like man- 
ner, many a slave-holder, whose . conscience is 
guided, not by the word of God, but by the doc- 
trines of men, is often suffering the lashes of a 
guilty conscience, even when he renders to his 
slave " that which is just and equal," according 
to the Scriptures, simply because he does not 
emancipate his slave, irrespective of the benefit 
or injury done by such an act. 

" How beautiful upon the mountains," in the 
apprehension of the reviewer, " would be the feet 
of him that would bring" to the Bornean " the 
glad tidings" that his conduct, in sparing the life 
of his tender and affectionate parent, was no sin ! 
# # # # Equally beautiful and delightful, 
does the reviewer trust, will it be, to an honest, 
scrupulous and conscientious slave-holder, to learn, 
from the word of God, the glad tidings that slav- 
ery itself is not sinful. Released now from an 
incubus that paralyzed his energies in discharge 
of duty towards his slaves, he goes forth cheer- 
fully to energetic action. It is not now as for- 
merly, when lie viewed slavery as in itself sinful. 
He can now pray, with the hope of being heard, 
that God will bless his exertions to train up his 
slaves " in the nurture and admonition of" the 
Lord :" whereas, before, he was retarded by this 
consideration, — "If I regard iniquity in my 
heart, the Lord will not hear me." Instead of 
hanging down his head, moping and brooding over 
his condition, as formerly, without action, he 
raises his head, and moves on cheerfully, in the 
plain path of duty. . 

He is no more tempted to look askance at the 
word of God, and saying, " Hast thou found me, 
mine enemy," come to "filch from me" my 
slaves, which, "while not enriching" them, "leaves 
me poor indeed ?" Instead of viewing the word of 
God, as formerly, come with whips and scorpions 
to chastise him into paradise, he feels that its 
" ways are ways of pleasantness, and its paths 
peace." Distinguishing now between the real 
word of God and what are only the doctrines and 
commandments of men, the mystery is solved, 
which was before insolvable, namely, " The stat- 
utes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart." 

If you should undertake to answer such 
a man by saying that his argument proves 
too much, — that neither Christ nor his 
apostles bore any explicit testimony against 
the gladiatorial shows and the sports of the 
anna, and, therefore, it would be .right to 
get them up in America. — the probability 
seems to be that he would heartily assent to 
it, and think, on the whole, that it might be a 
good speculation. As a further specimen of 
the free-and-easy facetiousness which seems 
to be a trait in this production, sec, on p. 58, 
where the Latin motto Facilis descensus 
Averni sad rccocarc, &c, receives the fol- 
lowing quite free and truly Western trans- 
lation, -which, he good-naturedly says, is 
"■iven for the benefit of those who do not 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



201 



understand Latin, — "It is easy to go to the 
devil, but the devil to get back." 

Some uncharitable people might, perhaps, 
say that the preachers of such doctrines are 
as likely as anybody to have an experi- 
mental knowledge on this point. The idea 
of this jovial old father instructing a class 
of black " Sams " and young : ' Topsys " in 
the mysteries of the Assembly's Catechism 
is truly picturesque ! 

That Mr. Smylie's opinions on the subject 
of slavery have been amply supported and 
carried out by leading clergymen in every 
denomination, we might give volumes of 
quotations to show. 

A second head, however, is yet to be con- 
sidered, with regard to the influence of the 
Southern church and clergy. 

It is well known that the Southern politi- 
cal community have taken their stand upon 
the position that the institution of slavery 
shall not be open to discussion. In many 
of the slave states stringent laws exist, sub- 
jecting to fine and imprisonment, and even 
death, any who speak or publish anything 
upon the subject, except in its favor. They 
have not only done this with regard to citi- 
zens of slave states, but they have shown the 
strongest disposition to do it with regard to 
citizens of free states ; and when these discus- 
sions could not be repelled by regular law, 
they have encouraged the use of illegal meas- 
ures. In the published letters and speeches 
of Horace Mann the following examples are 
given (p. 467). In 1831 the Legislature 
of Georgia offered five thousand dollars to 
any one who would arrest and bring to trial 
and conviction, in Georgia, a citizen of Mas- 
sachusetts, named William Lloyd Garrison. 
This law was approved by W. Lumpkin, 
Governor, Dec. 26, 1831. At a meet- 
ing of slave-holders held at Sterling, in the 
same state, September 4, 1835, it was 
formally recommended to the governor to 
offer, by proclamation, five thousand dollars 
reward for the apprehension of any one of 
ten persons, citizens, with one exception, of 
New York and Massachusetts, whose names 
were given. The Milled geville (Ga.) 
Federal Union of February 1st, 1836, 
contained an offer of ten thousand dollars 
for the arrest and kidnapping of the Rev. A. 
A. Phelps, of New York. The committee 
of vigilance of the parish of East Feliciana 
offered, in the Louisville Journal of Oct. 
15, 1835, fifty thousand dollars to any 
person who would deliver into their hands 
Arthur Tappan, of New York. At a pub- 
lic meeting at Mount Meigs, Alabama, Aug. 



13, 1836, the Hon. Bedford Ginress in the 
chair, a reward of fifty thousand dollars 
was offered for the apprehension of the same 
Arthur Tappan, or of Le Roy Sunderland, 
a Methodist clergyman of New York. Of 
course, as none of these persons could be 
seized except in violation of the laws of the 
state where they were citizens, this was 
offering a public reward for an act of felony. 
Throughout all the Southern States associa- 
tions were formed, called committees of 
vigilance, for the taking of measures for 
suppressing abolition opinions, and for the 
punishment by Lynch law of suspected 
persons. At Charleston, South Carolina, a 
mob of this description forced open the post- 
office, and made a general inspection, at 
their pleasure, of its contents ; and whatever 
publication they found there which they 
considered to be of a dangerous and anti- 
slavery tendency, they made a public bonfire 
of, in the street. A large public meeting 
was held, a few days afterwards, to complete 
the preparation for excluding anti-slavery 
principles from publication, and for ferreting 
out persons suspected of abolitionism, that 
they might be subjected to Lynch law. 
Similar popular meetings were held through 
the Southern and Western States. At one 
of these, held in Clinton, Mississippi, in the 
year 1835, the following resolutions were 
passed : 

Resolved, That slavery through the South and 
"West is not felt as an evil, moral or political, but 
it is recognized in reference to the actual, and not 
to any Utopian condition of our slaves, as a bless- 
ing both to master and slave. 

Resolved, That it is our decided opinion that 
any individual who dares to circulate, with a view 
to effectuate the designs of the abolitionists, any 
of the incendiary tracts or newspapers now in 
a course of transmission to this country, is justly 
worthy, in the sight of God and man, of immedi- 
ate death ; and -we doubt not that such would be 
the punishment ot any such offender in any part 
of the State of Mississippi where he may be found. 

Resolved, That the clergy of the State of Missis- 
sippi be hereby recommended at once to take a 
stand upon this subject ; and that their further 
silence in relation thereto, at this crisis, will, in 
our opinion, be subject to serious censure. 

The treatment to which persons were ex- 
posed, when taken up by any of these vigi- 
lance committees, as suspected of anti-slavery 
sentiments, may be gathered from the follow- 
ing account. The writer has a distinct 
recollection of the circumstances at the 
present time, as the victim of this injustice 
was a member of the seminary then under 
the care of her father. 

Amos Dresser, now a missionary in Jamaica, 
was a theological student at Lane Seminary, near 



202 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



Cincinnati. In the vacation (August 1835) he 
undertook to sell Bibles in the State of Tennessee, 
with a view to raise means further to continue his 
studies. Whilst there, he fell under suspicion 
of being an abolitionist, was arrested by the vigi- 
lance committee whilst attending a religious 
meeting in the neighborhood of Nashville, the 
capitai°of the state, and, after an afternoon and 
evening's inquisition, condemned to receive twenty 
lashes on his naked body. The sentence was exe- 
cuted on him, between eleven and twelve o'clock 
on Saturday night, in the presence of most of the 
committee, and of an infuriated and blaspheming 
mob. The vigilance committee (an unlawful as- 
sociation) consisted of sixty persons. Of these, 
twenty-seven were members of churches ; one, a 
religious teacher ; another, the Elder who but a 
few days before, in the Presbyterian church, 
handed Mr. Dresser the bread and wine at the 
communion of the Lord's supper. 

It will readily be seen that the principle 
involved in such proceedings as these in- 
volves more than the question of slavery. 
The question was, in fact, this, — whether it 
is so important to hold African slaves that it 
is proper to deprive free Americans of the 
liberty of conscience, and liberty of speech, 
and liberty of the press, in order to do it. It 
is easy to see that very serious changes 
would be made in the government of a coun- 
try by the admission of this principle; 
because it is quite plain that, if all these 
principles of our free government may be 
given up for one thing, they may for 
another, and that its ultimate tendency 
is to destroy entirely that freedom of opin- 
ion and thought which is considered to be 
the distinguishing excellence of American 
institutions. 

The question now is, Did the church join 
with the world in thinking the institution 
of slavery so important and desirable as to 
lead them to look with approbation upon 
Lynch law, and the sacrifice of the rights 
of free inquiry l We answer the reader by 
submitting the following facts and quota- 
tions. 

At the large meeting which we have de- 
scribed above, in Charleston. South Caro- 
lina, the Charleston Courier informs us 
"that the clergy of all denominations at- 
tended in a body, lending their sanction to 
the proceedings, and adding by their pres- 
ence to the impressive character of the 
scene." There can be no doubt that the 
presence of the clergy of all denomina- 
tions, in a body, at a meeting held for such 
a purpose, was an impressive scene, truly ! 

At this meeting it was Resolved, 

That the thanks of this meeting arc due to the 
reverend gentlemen of the clergy in this city, who 
have so promptly and so effectually responded to 



public sentiment, by suspending their schools in 
which the free colored population were 'taught ; 

and that this meeting deem it a patriotic action, 
worthy Of" all praise, and proper to be imitated 
by other teachers of similar schools throughout 
the state. 

The question here arises, whether their 
Lord, at the day of judgment, will comment 
on their actions in a similar strain. 

The alarm of the Virginia slave-holders 
was not less ; nor were the clergy in the 
city of Richmond, the capital, less prompt 
than the clergy in Charleston to respond to 
"public sentiment." Accordingly, on the 
29th of July, they assembled together, and 
Resolved, unanimously, 

That we earnestly deprecate the unwarrantable 
and highly improper interference of the people of 
any other state with the domestic relations of 
master and slave. 

That the example of our Lord Jesus Christ and 
his apostles, in not interfering with the question 
of slavery, but uniformly recognizing the relations 
of master and servant, and giving full and affec- 
tionate instruction to both, is worthy of the imi- 
tation of all ministers of the gospel. 

That we will not patronize nor receive any 
pamphlet or newspaper of the anti-slavery socie- 
ties, and that we will discountenance the circula- 
tion of all such papers in the community. 

The Rev. J. C. Postell, a Methodist 
minister of South Carolina, concludes a very 
violent letter to the editor of Zioii's Watch- 
man, a Methodist anti-slavery paper pub- 
lished in New York, in the following 
manner. The reader will see that this 
taunt is an allusion to the offer of fifty 
thousand dollars for his body at the South 
which we have given before. 

But, if you desire to educate the slaves, I will 
tell you how to raise the money without editing 
Zioii's Watchman. You and old Arthur Tappan 
come out to the South this winter, and they will 
raise one hundred thousand dollars for you. New 
Orleans, itself, will be pledged for it. Desiring 
no further acquaintance with you, and never ex- 
pecting to see you but once in time or eternity, that 
is at the judgment, I subscribe myself the friend 
of the Bible, and the opposer of aholitionists, 

J. C. Postell. 

Orangcburgh, July 21st, 1836. 

The Rev. Thomas S. Witherspoon, a mem- 
ber of the Presbyterian Church, writing to 
the editor of the Emancipator, says : 

I draw my warrant from the Scriptures of the 
Old and New Testament, to hold the slave in 
I ii milage. The principle of holding the heathen in 
bondage is recognized by God. * * * When 
the tardy process of the law is too long in redress- 
ing our grievances, we of the South have adopted 
the summary remedy of Judge Lynoh — and really 
I think it one of the most wholesome and salutary 
remedies for the malady of Northern fanaticism 
that can be applied, and no doubt my worthy 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



203 



friend, the Editor of the Emancipator and Human 
Rights, would feel the better of its enforcement, 
provided he had a Southern administrator. I go 
to the Bible for my warrant in all moral matters. 
* * Let your emissaries dare venture to cross 
the Potomac, and I cannot promise you that their 
fate will be less than Hainan's. Then beware 
how you goad an insulted but magnanimous peo- 
ple to deeds of desperation ! 

The Rev. Robert N. Anderson, also a 
member of the Presbyterian Church, says, in 
a letter to the Sessions of the Presbyterian 
Congregations within the bounds of the West 
Hanover Presbytery : 

At the approaching stated meeting of our Pres- 
bytery, I design to offer a preamble and string of 
resolutions on the subject of the use of wine in 
the Lord's Supper ; and also a preamble and string 
of resolutions on the subject of the treasonable and 
abominably wicked interference of the Northern 
and Eastern fanatics with our political and civil 
rights, our property and our domestic concerns. 
You are aware that our clergy, whether with or 
without reason, are more suspected by the public 
than the clergy of other denominations. Now, 
dear Christian brethren, I humbly express it as my 
earnest wish, that you quit yourselves like men. If 
there be any stray goat of a minister among you, 
tainted with the blood-hound principles of aboli- 
tionism, let him be ferreted out, silenced, excom- 
municated, and left to the public to dispose of him 
in other respects. 

Your affectionate brother in the Lord, 

Robert N. Anderson. 

The Rev. William S. Plummer, D.D., of 
Richmond, a member of the Old-school Pres- 
byterian Church, is another instance of the 
same sort. JHe was absent from Richmond 
at the time the clergy in that city purged 
themselves, in a body, from the charge of 
being favorably disposed to abolition. On 
his return, he lost no time in communicating 
to the " Chairman of the Committee of Cor- 
respondence " his agreement with his clerical 
brethren. The passages quoted occur in his 
letter to the chairman : 

I have carefully watched this matter from its 
earliest existence, and everything I have seen or 
heard of its character, both from its patrons and 
its enemies, has confirmed me, beyond repentance, 
in the belief, that, let the character of abolition- 
ists be what it may in the sight of the Judge of 
all the earth, this is the most meddlesome, impu- 
dent, reckless, fierce, and wicked excitement I 
ever saw. 

If abolitionists will set the country in a blaze, 
it is but fair that they should receive the first 
warming at the fire. 

Lastly. Abolitionists are like infidels, wholly 
unaddicted to martyrdom for opinion's sake. Let 
them understand that thcyivill be caught [Lynched] 
if they come among us, and they will take good 
heed to keep out of our way. There is not one 
man among them who has any more idea of shed- 



ding his blood in this cause than he has of making 
war on the Grand Turk. 

The Rev. Dr. Hill, of Virginia, said, in 
the New School Assembly : 

The abolitionists have made the servitude of 
the slave harder. If I could tell you some of the 
dirty tricks which these abolitionists have played, 
you would not wonder. Some of them have been 
Lynched, and it served them right. 

These things sufficiently show the estimate 
which the Southern clergy and church have 
formed and expressed as to the relative value 
of slavery and the right of free inquiry. It 
shows, also, that they consider slavery as so 
important that they can tolerate and encour- 
age acts of lawless violence, and risk all the 
dangers of encouraging mob law, for its sake. 
These passages and considerations sufficiently 
show the stand which the Southern church 
takes upon this subject. 

For many of these opinions, shocking as 
they may appear, some apology may be 
found in that blinding power of custom and 
all those deadly educational influences which 
always attend the system of slavery, and 
which must necessarily produce a certain ob- 
tuseness of the moral sense in the mind of 
any man who is educated from childhood 
under them. 

There is also, in the habits of mind formed 
under a system which is supported by con- 
tinual resort to force and violence, a neces- 
sary deadening of sensibility to the evils of 
force and violence, as applied to other sub- 
jects. The whole style of civilization which 
is formed under such an institution has been 
not unaptly denominated by a popular writer 
"the bowie-knife style;" and we must not 
be surprised at its producing a peculiarly 
martial cast of religious character, and ideas 
very much at variance with the spirit of the 
gospel. A religious man, born and educated 
at the South, has all these difficulties to con- 
tend with, in elevating himself to the true 
spirit of the gospel. 

It was said by one that, after the Reform- 
ation, the best of men, being educated under 
a system of despotism and force, and accus- 
tomed from childhood to have force, and not 
argument, made the test of opinion, came to 
look upon all controversies very much in a 
Smithfield light, — the question being not as 
to the propriety of burning heretics, but as 
to which party ought to be burned. 

The system of slavery is a simple retro- 
gression of society to the worst abuses of the 
middle ages. We must not therefore be sur- 
prised to find the opinions and practices of 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



204 

the middle ages, as to civil and religious 
toleration, prevailing. 

However much we may reprobate and de- 
plore those unworthy views of God and reli- 
gion which are implied in such declarations 
as are here recorded, — however blasphemous 
and absurd they may appear, — still, it is ap- 
parent that their authors uttered them with 
sincerity ; and this is the most melancholy 
feature of the case. They are as sincere as 
Paul when he breathed out threatenings and 
slaughter, and when he thought within him- 
self that he ought to do many things contrary 
to the name of Jesus. They are as sincere 
as the Brahmin or Hindoo, conscientiously 
supporting a religion of cruelty and blood. 
They are as sincere as many enlightened, 
scholarlike and Christian men in modern Eu- 
rope, who, born and bred under systems of 
civil and religious despotism, and having them 
entwined with all fheir dearest associations 
of home and country, and having all their 
habits of thought and feeling biased by them, 
do most conscientiously defend them. 

There is something in conscientious con- 
viction, even in case of the worst kind of 
opinions, which is not without a certain de- 
gree of respectability. That the religion 
expressed by the declarations which we have 
quoted is as truly Antichrist as the religion 
of the Church of Rome, it is presumed no 
sensible person out of the sphere of American 
influences will deny. That there may be 
very sincere Christians under this system of 
religion, with all its false principles and all 
its disadvantageous influences, liberality must 
concede. The Church of Rome has had its 
Fenelon, its Thomas a Kempis; and the 
Southern Church, which has adopted these 
principles, has had men who have risen 
above the level of their system. At the 
time of the Reformation, and now, the 
Church of Rome had in its bosom thou- 
sands of praying, devoted, humble Christians, 
which, like flowers in the clefts of rocks, 
could be counted by no eye, save God's alone. 
And so, amid the rifts and glaciers of this 
horrible spiritual and temporal despotism, we 
hope are blooming flowers of Paradise, pa- 
tient, prayerful, and self-denying Christians ; 
and it is the deepest grief, in attacking the 
dreadful system under which they have been 
born and brought up, that violence must be 
done to their cherished feelings and associa- 
tions. In another and better world, perhaps, 
they may appreciate the motives of those 
who do this. 

But now another consideration comes to 
the mind. These Southern Christians have 



been united in ecclesiastical relations with 
Christians of the northern and free states, 
meeting with them, by their representatives, 
yearly, in their various ecclesiastical assem- 
blies. One might hope, in case of such a 
union, that those debasing views of Chris- 
tianity, and thatdeadness of public sentiment, 
which were the inevitable result of an educa- 
tion under the slave system, might have been 
qualified by intercourse with Christians in 
free states, who, having grown up under free 
institutions, would naturally be supposed to 
feel the utmost abhorrence of such sentiments. 
One would have supposed that the church 
and clergy of the free states would naturally 
have used the most strenuous endeavors, by 
all the means in their power, to convince 
their brethren of errors so dishonorable to 
Christianity, and tending to such dreadful 
practical results. One would have supposed 
also, that, failing to convince their brethren, 
they would have felt it due to Christianity to 
clear themselves from all complicity with 
these sentiments, by the most solemn, earnest 
and reiterated protests. 

Let us now inquire what has, in fact, been 
the course of the Northern church on this 
subject. 

Previous to making this inquiry, let us 
review the declarations that have been made 
in the Southern church, and see what prin- 
ciples have been established by them. 

1. That slavery is an innocent and law- 
ful relation, as much as that of parent and 
child, husband and wife, or any other lawful 
relation of society. (Harmony Pres., S. C.) 

2. That it is consistent with the most 
fraternal regard for the good of the slave. 
(Charleston Union Pres., S. C.) 

3. That masters ought not to be disci- 
plined for selling slaves without their con- 
sent. (New-school Pres. Church, Peters- 
burg, Ya.) 

4. That the right to buy, sell, and hold 
men for purposes of gain, was given by 
express permission of God. (James Smylie 
and his Presbyteries.) 

5. That the laws which forbid the educa- 
tion of the slave are right, and meet the 
approbation of the reflecting part of the 
Christian community. (Ibid.) 

G. That the fact of slavery is not a ques- 
tion of morals at all. but is purely one of 
political economy. (Charleston Baptist As- 
sociation.) 

7. The right of masters to dispose of the 
time of their slaves has been distinctly 
recognized by the Creator of all things. 
(Ibid.) 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIX. 



205 



8. That slavery, as it exists in these 
United States, is not a moral evil. (Georgia 
Conference, Methodist.) 

9. That, without a new revelation from 
heaven, no man is entitled to pronounce 
slavery wrong. 

10. That the separation of slaves by sale 
should be regarded as separation by death, 
and the parties allowed to marry again. 
(Shiloh Baptist Ass., and Savannah River 
Ass.) 

11. That the testimony of colored mem- 
bers of the churches shall not be taken 
against a white person. (Methodist Church.) 

In addition, it has been plainly avowed, 
by the expressed principles and practice of 
Christians of various denominations, that they 
regard it right and .proper to put down all 
inquiry upon this subject by Lynch law. 

One -would have imagined that these prin- 
ciples were sufficiently extraordinary, as 
coming from the professors of the religion 
of Christ, to have excited a good deal of 
attention in their Northern brethren. It 
also must be seen that, as principles, they 
are principles of very extensive application, 
underlying the whole foundations of religion 
and morality. If not true, they were cer- 
tainly heresies of no ordinary magnitude, 
involving no ordinary results. Let us now 
return to our inquiry as to the course of 
the Northern church in relation to them. 



CHAPTER II. 



In the first place, have any of these 
opinions ever been treated in the church as 
heresies, and the teachers of them been sub- 
jected to the censures with which it is 
thought proper to visit heresy 1 

After a somewhat extended examination 
upon the subject, the writer has been able 
to discover but one instance of this sort. 
It may be possible that such cases have 
existed in other denominations, which have 
escaped inquiry. 

A clergyman in the Cincinnati N. S. Pres- 
bytery maintained the doctrine that slave- 
holding was justified by the Bible, and for 
persistence in teaching this sentiment was 
suspended by that presbytery. He appealed 
to Synod, and the decision was confirmed by 
the Cincinnati Synod. The New School 
General Assembly, however, reversed this 
decision of the presbytery, and restored the 
standing of the clergyman. The presbytery, 



on its part, refused to receive him back, and 
he was received into the Old School Church. 

The Presbyterian Church has probably 
exceeded all other churches of the United 
States in its zeal for doctrinal opinions. 
This church has been shaken and agitated to 
its very foundation with questions of heresy ; 
but, except in this individual case, it is not 
known that any of these principles which 
have been asserted by Southern Presbyterian 
bodies and individuals have ever been dis- 
cussed in its General Assembly as matters 
of heresy. 

About the time that Smylie's pamphlet 
came out, the Presbyterian Church was 
convulsed with the trial of the Rev. Albert 
Barnes for certain allaged heresies. These 
heresies related to the federal headship of 
Adam, the propriety of imputing his sin to 
all his posterity, and the question whether 
men have any ability of any kind to obey 
the commandments of God. 

For advancing certain sentiments on these 
topics, Mr. Barnes was silenced by the vote 
of the synod to which he belonged, and his 
trial in the General Assembly on these 
points was the all-engrossing topic in the 
Presbyterian Church for some time. The 
Rev. Dr. L. Beecher went through a trial 
with reference to similar opinions. During 
all this time, no notice was taken of the 
heresy, if such it be, that the right to buy, 
sell, and hold men for purposes of gain, 
was expressly given by God ; although that 
heresy was publicly promulgated in the 
same Presbyterian Church, by Mr. Smylie, 
and the presbyteries with which he was con- 
nected. 

If it be accounted for by saying that the 
question of slavery is a question of 'practi- 
cal morals, and not of dogmatic theology, 
we are then reminded that questions of 
morals of far less magnitude have been dis- 
cussed with absorbing interest. 

The Old School Presbyterian Church, in 
whose communion the greater part of the 
slave-holding Presbyterians of the South are 
found, has never felt called upon to discipline 
its members for upholding a system which 
denies legal "marriage to all slaves. Yet this 
church was agitated to its very foundation 
by the discussion of a question of morals 
which an impartial observer would probably 
consider of far less magnitude, namely, 
whether a man might lawfully marry his 
deceased wife's sister. For the time, all 
the strength and attention of the church 
seemed concentrated upon this important 
subject. The trial went from Presbytery to 



206 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



Synod, and from Synod to General Assem- 
bly ; and ended with deposing a very respect- 
able minister for this crime. 

Rev. Robert P. Breckenridge, D.D., a 
member of the Old School Assembly, has 
thus described the state of the slave popu- 
lation as to their marriage relations : " The 
system of slavery denies to a whole class of 
human beings the sacredness of marriage 
and of home, compelling them to live in a 
state of concubinage ; for in the eye of the 
law no colored slave-man is the husband of 
any wife in particular, nor any slave-woman 
the wife of any husband in particular ; no 
slave-man is the father of any children in 
particular, and no slave-child is the child of 
any parent in particular." 

Now, had this church considered the fact 
that three million men and women were, by 
the laws of the land, obliged to live in this 
manner, as of equally serious consequence, 
it is evident, from the ingenuity, argument, 
vehemence, Biblical research, and untiring 
zeal, which they bestowed on Mr. McQueen's 
trial, that they could have made a very 
strong case with regard to this also. 

The history of the united action of de- 
nominations which included churches both 
in the slave and free states is a melancholy 
exemplification, to a reflecting mind, of that 
gradual deterioration of the moral sense 
which results from admitting any compro- 
mise, however slight, with an acknowledged 
sin. The best minds in the world cannot 
bear such a familiarity without injury to the 
moral sense. The facts of the slave system 
and of the slave laws, when presented to 
disinterested judges in Europe, have excited 
a universal outburst of horror ; yet, in assem- 
blies composed of the wisest and best cler- 
gymen of America, these things have been 
discussqd from year to year, and yet brought 
no results that have, in the slightest degree, 
lessened the evil. The reason is this. A 
portion of the members of these bodies had 
pledged themselves to sustain the system, 
and peremptorily to refuse and put down all 
discussion of it ; and the other part of the 
body did not consider this stand so taken as 
being of sufficiently vital consequence to 
authorize separation. 

Nobody will doubt that, had the Southern 
members taken such a stand against the 
divinity of our Lord, the division would 
have been immediate and unanimous ; but 
yet the Southern members do maintain the 
right to buy and sell, lease, hire and mort- 
gage, multitudes of men and women, whom, 
with the same breath, they declared to be 



members of their churches and true Chris- 
tians. The Bible declares of all such that 
they are temples of the Holy Ghost ; that 
they are members of Christ's body, of his 
flesh and bones. Is not the doctrine that 
men may lawfully sell the members of 
Christ, his body, his flesh and bones, for 
purposes of gain, as really a heresy as the 
denial of the divinity of Christ ; and is it 
not a dishonor to Him who is over all, God 
blessed forever, to tolerate this dreadful 
opinion, with its more dreadful consequences, 
while the smallest heresies concerning the 
imputation of Adam's sin are pursued with 
eager vehemence? If the history of the 
action of all the bodies thus united can be 
traced downwards, w r e shall find that, by 
reason of this tolerance of an admitted sin, 
the anti-slavery testimony has every year 
grown weaker and weaker. If we look over 
the history of all denominations, we shall 
see that at first they used very stringent 
language with relation to slavery. This is 
particularly the case with the Methodist and 
Presbyterian bodies, and for that reason we 
select these two as examples. The Methodist 
Society especially, as organized by John 
Wesley, was an anti-slavery society, and the 
Book of Discipline contained the most posi- 
tive statutes against slave-holding. The 
history of the successive resolutions of the 
conference of this church is very striking. 
In 1780, before the church was regularly 
organized in the United States, they resolved 
as follows : 

The conference acknowledges that slavery is 
contrary to the laws of God, man and nature, 
and hurtful to society ; contrary to the dictates of 
conscience and true religion ; and doing what we 
would not others should do unto us. 

In 1784, when the church was fully or- 
ganized, rules were adopted prescribing the 
times at which members who were already 
slave-holders should emancipate their slaves. 
These rules were succeeded by the following : 

Every person concerned, who will not comply 
with these rules, shall have liberty quietly to 
withdraw from our society within the twelve 
months following the notice being given him, as 
aforesaid; otherwise the assistants shall exclude 
him from the society. 

No person holding slaves shall in future be 
admitted into society, or to the Lord's Supper, 
till he previously comply with these rules concern- 
ing slavery. 

Those who buy, sell, or give [slaves] away, 
unless on purpose to free them, shall be 'expelled 
immediately. 

In 1801 : 

"Wc" declare that we are more than ever con- 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



vincod of the great evil of African slavery, which 
still exists in these United States. 

Every member of the society who sells a slave 
shall, immediately after full proof, be excluded 
from the society, &c. 

The Annual Conferences are directed to draw 
up addressee, fur the gradual emancipation of the 
slaves, to the legislature. Proper committees 
shall be appointed by the Annual Conferences, out 
of the most respectable of our friends, for the 
conducting of the business ; and the presiding 
elders, deacons, and travelling preachers, shall 
procure as many proper signatures as possible to 
the addresses ; and give all the assistance in their 
power, in every respect, to aid the committees, and 
to further the blessed undertaking. Let this be 
continued from year to year, till the desired end 
be accomplished. 

In 1836 let us notice the change. The 
General Conference held its annual session 
in Cincinnati, and resolved as follows : 

Resolved, By the delegates of the Annual Con- 
ferences in General Conference assembled, That 
they are decidedly opposed to modern abolition- 
ism, and wholly disc/aim any right, icish, or inten- 
tion, to interfere in the civil and political relation 
between master and slave, as it exists in the slave- 
holding states of this Union. 

These resolutions were passed by a very 
large majority. An address was received 
from the VVesleyan Methodist Conference in 
England, affectionately remonstrating on the 
subject of slavery. The Conference re- 
fused to publish it. In the pastoral address 
to the churches are these passages : 

It cannot be unknown to you that the question 
of slavery in the United States, by the constitu- 
tional compact which binds us together as a nation, 
is left to be regulated by the several state legis- 
latures themselves ; and thereby is put beyond the 
control of the general government, as well as that 
of all ecclesiastical bodies ; it being manifest that 
in the slave-holding states themselves the entire 
responsibility of its existence, or non-existence, 
rests with those state legislatures. * * * * 
These facts, which are only mentioned here as a 
reason for the friendly admonition which we wish 
to give you, constrain us, as your pastors, who are 
called to watch over your souls as they must give 
account, to exhort you to abstain from all abolition 
movements and associations, and to refrain from 
patronizing any of their publications, &c. * * 

The subordinate conferences showed the 
same spirit. 

In 1836 the New York Annual Confer- 
ence resolved that no one should be elected 
a deacon or elder in the church, unless he 
would give a pledge to the church that he 
would refrain from discussing this subject.* 

In 1838 the conference resolved : 

• As the sense of this conference, that any of its 
members, or probationers, who shall patronize 
Zion's Watchman , either by writing in commend- 

* This resolution is given in Birney's pamphlet. 



207 

ation of its character, by circulating it, recom- 
mending it to our people, or procuring subscribers, 
or by collecting or remitting inone\ T s, shall be 
deemed guilty of indiscretion, and dealt with ac- 
cordingly. 

It will be recollected that Zion's Watch- 
man was edited by Le Roy Sunderland, for 
whose abduction the State of Alabama had 
offered fifty thousand dollars. 

In 1840, the General Conference at Bal- 
timore passed the resolution that we have 
already quoted, forbidding preachers to allow 
colored persons to give testimony in their 
churches. It has been computed that about 
eighty thousand people were deprived of the 
right of testimony by this act. This Metho- 
dist Church subsequently broke into a North- 
ern and Southern Conference. The South- 
ern Conference is avowedly all pro-slavery, 
and the Northern Conference has still in its 
communion slave-holding conferences and 
members. 

Of the Northern conferences, one of the 
largest, the Baltimore, passed the following : 

Resolved, That this conference disclaims having 
any fellowship with abolitionism. On the con- 
trary, while it is determined to maintain its well- 
known and long-established position, by keeping 
the travelling preachers composing its'own body- 
free from slavery, it is also determined not to hold 
connection with any ecclesiastical body that shall 
make non-slaveholding a condition of membership 
in the church ; but to stand by and maintain the 
discipline as it is. 

The following extract is made from an ad- 
dress of the Philadelphia Annual Conference 
to the societies under its care, dated "Wil- 
mington Del., April 7, 1847 : 

If the plan of separation gives us the pastoral 
care of you, it remains to inquire whether we have 
done anything, as a conference, or as men, to for- 
feit your confidence and affection. AVe are not 
advised that even in the great excitement which 
has distressed you for some months past, any one 
has impeached our moral conduct, or charged us 
with unsoundness in doctrine, or corruption or 
tyranny in the administration of discipline. But 
we learn that the simple cause of the unhappy ex- 
citement among you is, that some suspect us, or 
affect to suspect us, of being abolitionists. Yet 
no particular act of the conference, or any partic- 
ular member thereof, is adduced, as the ground of 
the erroneous and injurious suspicion. We would 
ask you, brethren, Whether the conduct of our 
ministry among you for sixty years past ought 
not to be sufficient to protect us from this charge. 
Whether the question we have been accustomed, 
for a few years past, to put to candidates for 
admission among us, namely, Are you an aboli- 
tionist ? and, without each one answered in the 
negative, he was not received, ought not to protect 
us from the charge. Whether the action of the 
last conference on this particular matter ought 
not to satisfy any fair and candid mind that we are 



208 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



not, and do not desire to be, abolitionists. * * * 
We cannot see bow we can be regarded as aboli- 
tionists, without the ministers of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church South being considered in the 
same light. * * * * 

Wishing you all heavenly benedictions, we are, 
dear brethren, yours, in Christ Jesus, 

J. P. DURBIN, "I 

J. Kennaday, 

Ignatius T. Cooper, y Comm. 
William H. Gilder, I 
Joseph Castle, 

These facts sufficiently define the position 
of the Methodist Church. The history is 
melancholy, but instructive. The history of 
the Presbyterian Church is also of interest. 

In 1793, the following note to the eighth 
commandment was inserted in the Book of 
Discipline, as expressing the doctrine of the 
church upon slave-holding : 

ITim. 1 : 10. The law is made for jian-stealers. 
This crime among the Jews exposed the perpetra- 
tors of it to capital punishment, Exodus 21 : 15 ; 
and the apostle here classes them with sinners of 
the first rank. The word he uses, in its original 
import, comprehends all who are concerned in 
bringing any of the human race into slavery, or in 
retaining them in it. Hominum fures, qui servos 
vel liberos abdacunt, retinent, vendunt, vel emunt. 
Stealers of men are all those who bring off slaves 
or freemen, and keep, sell, or buy them. To steal a 
free man, says Grotius, is the highest kind of theft. 
In other instances, we only steal human property ; 
but when we steal or retain men in slavery, we 
seize those who, in common with ourselves, are 
constituted by the original grant lords of the earth. 

No rules of church discipline were en- 
forced, and members whom this passage de- 
clared guilty of this crime remained undis- 
turbed in its communion, as ministers and 
elders. This inconsistency was obviated in 
1816 by expunging the passage from the 
Book of Discipline. In 1818 it adopted an 
expression of its views on slavery. This 
document is a long one, conceived and writ- 
ten in a very Christian spirit. The Assembly's 
Digest says, p. 341, that it vivisunanimously 
adopted. The following is its testimony as 
to the nature of slavery : 

We consider the voluntary enslaving of one part 
of the human race by another as a gross violation 
of the most precious and sacred rights of human 
nature ; as utterly inconsistent with the law of 
God, which requires us to love our neighbor as 
ourselves ; and as totally irreconcilable with the 
spirit and principles of the gospel of Christ, which 
enjoin that "all things whatsoever ye would that 
men should do to you, do ye even so to them." 
Slavery creates a paradox in the moral system — 
it exhibits rational, accountable, and immortal 
beings in such circumstances as scarcely to leave 
them the power of moral action. It exhibits them 
as dependent on the will of others, whether they 
shall receive religious instruction; whether they 
shall know and worship the true God ; whether 



they shall enjoy the ordinances of the gospel ; 
whether they shall perform the duties and cherish 
the endearments of husbands and wives, parents 
and children, neighbors and friends ; whether they 
shall preserve their chastity and purity, or regard 
the dictates of justice and humanity. Such are 
some of the consequences of slavery, — conse- 
quences not imaginary, but which connect them- 
selves with its very existence. The evils to which 
the slave is always exposed often take place in 
fact, and in their very worst degree and form : and 
where all of them do not take place, — as we rejoice 
to say that in many instances, through the influence 
of the principles of humanity and religion on the 
minds of masters, they do not, — still the slave is 
deprived of his natural right, degraded as a human 
being, and exposed to the danger of passing into 
the hands of a master who may inflict upon him 
all the hardships and injuries which inhumanity 
and avarice may suggest. 

This language was surely decided, and it 
was unanimously adopted by slave-holders 
and non-slaveholders. Certainly one might 
think the time of redemption was drawing 
nigh. The declaration goes on to say : 

It is manifestly the duty of all Christians who 
enjoy the light of the present day, when the incon- 
sistency of slavery both with the dictates of hu- 
manity and religion has been demonstrated and 
is generally seen and acknowledged, to use honest, 
earnest, unwearied endeavors to correct the errors 
of former times, and as speedily as possible to 
efface this blot on our holy religion, and to obtain 
the complete abolition of slavery throughout 
Christendom and throughout the world. 

Here we have the Presbyterian Church, 
slave-holding and non-slavehokling, virtually 
formed into one great abolition society^ as 
we have seen the Methodist was. 

The assembly then goes on to state that 
the slaves are not at present prepared to be 
free, — that they tenderly sympathize with 
the portion of the church and country that 
has had this evil entailed upon them, where 
as they say "a great and the most virtuous 
part of the community abhor slavery and 
wish ITS extermination." But they ex- 
hort them to commence immediately the work 
of instructing slaves, with a view to preparing 
them for freedom ; and to let no greater delay 
take place than "a regard to public welfare 
indispensably demands." "To be governed 
by no other considerations than an honest 
and impartial regard to the happiness 
of the injured party, uninfluenced by the 
expense and inconvenience which such re- 
gard may involve." It warns against " un- 
duly extending this plea of necessity" 
against making it a cover for the love and 
practice of slavery. It ends by recom- 
mending that any one who shall sell a fellow- 
Christian without his consent be immediately 
disciplined and suspended. 



\ 



KEY TO UNCLE TOMS CABIN. 



If we consider that this was unanimously 
adopted by slave-holders and all, and grant, 
as we certainly do, that it was adopted in all 
honesty and good faith, we shall surely ex- 
pect something from it. We should expect 
forthwith the organizing of a set of common 
schools for the slave-children; for an efficient 
religious ministration ; for an entire discon 
tinuance of trading in Christian slaves ; for 
laws which make the family relations sacred. 
Was any such thing done or attempted? 
Alas ! Two years after this came the ADMIS- 
SION of Missouri, and the increase of de- 
mand in the southern slave-market and the 
internal slave-trade. Instead of school- 
teachers, they had slave-traders; instead of 
gathering schools, they gathered slave-cof- 
Jlcs ; instead of building school-houses, they 
built slave-pens and slave-prisons, jails, bar- 
racoons, factories, or whatever the trade pleases 
to term them ; and so went the plan of grad- 
ual emancipation. 

In 1884, sixteen years after, a committee 
of the Synod of Kentucky, in which state 
slavery is generally said to exist in its 
mildest form, appointed to make a report on 
the condition of the slaves, gave the follow- 
ing picture of their condition. First, as to 
their spiritual condition, they say : 

After making all reasonable allowances, our 
colored population can be considered, at the most, 
but serm-heathen. As to their temporal estate 
— Brutal stripes, and all the various kinds of per- 
sonal indignities, are not the only species of 
cruelty which slavery licenses. The law does not 
ree >gnize the family relations of the slave, and 
extends to him no protection in the enjoyment of 
domestic endearments. The members of a slave- 
family may be forcibly separated, so that they 
Bhall never more meet until the final judgment. 
And cupidity often induces the masters to practise 
what the law allows. Brothers and sisters, pa- 
rents and children, husbands and wives, are torn 
asunder, and permitted to see each other no more. 
These acts are daily occurring in the midst of us. 
The shrieks and the agony often witnessed on 
such occasions proclaim with a trumpet-tongue 
the iniquity and cruelty of our system. The 
cries of these sufferers go up to the ears of the 
Lord of Sabaoth. There is not a neigldiorhood 
where these heart-rending scenes are not displayed. 
There is not a village or road that does not behold 
the sad procession of manacled outcasts, whose 
chains and mournful countenances tell that they 
are exiled by force from all that their hearts hold 
dear. Oui murch, years ago, raised its voice of 
solemn warning against this flagrant violation of 
every principle of mercy, justice, and humanity. 
Yet we blush to announce to you and to the world 
that this warning has been often disregarded, 
even by those who hold to our communion. Cases 
Iwtve occurred, in our own denomination, where pro- 
fessors of the religion of mercy have lorn the 
niu'hcr from her children, and sent her into a merci- 
less and returnless exile. Yet acts of discipline 
have rarely followed such conduct. 
14 



209 

Hon. James G. Bir.ney, for years a resi- 
dent of Kentucky, in his pamphlet, amends 
the word rarely by substituting never. What 
could show more plainly the utter ineffi- 
ciency of the past act of the Assembly, and 
the necessity of adopting some measures 
more efficient? In 1885, therefore, the sub- 
ject was urged upon the General Assembly, 
entreating them to carry out the principles 
and designs they had avowed in 1818. 

Mr. Stuart, of Illinois, in a speech he 
made upon the subject, said : 

I hope this assembly are prepared to come out 
fully and declare their sentiments, that slave-hold- 
ing is a most flagrant and heinous six. Let us 
not pass it by in this indirect way, while so many 
thousands and tens of thousands of our fellow- 
creatures are writhing under the lash, often 
inflicted, too, by ministers and elders of the Pres- 
byterian Church. 

* * * * # 

In this church a man may take a free-born child, 
force it away from its parents, to whom God gave 
it in charge, saying " Bring it up for me," and 
sell it as a beast or hold it in perpetual bondage, 
and not only escape corporeal punishment, but 
really be esteemed an excellent Christian. Nay, 
even ministers of the gospel and doctors of divinity 
may engage in this unholy traffic, and yet sus- 
tain their high and holy calling. 

* * # # « 
Elders, ministers, and doctors of divinity, are, 

with both hands, engaged in the practice. 

One would have thought facts like these, 
stated in a body of Christians, were enough 
to wake the dead ; but, alas ! we can become 
accustomed to very awful things. No ac- 
tion was taken upon these remonstrances, 
except to refer them to a committee, to be 
reported on at the next session, in 1836. 

The moderator of the assembly in 1*886 
was a slave-holder, Dr. T. S. W r itherspoon, 
the same who said to the editor of the 
Emancipator, ' ' I draw my warrant from the 
Scriptures of the Old and New Testament 
to hold my slaves in bondage. The princi- 
ple of holding the heathen in bondage is 
recognized by God. When the tardy pro- 
cess of the law is too long in redressing our 
grievances, we at the South have adopted 
the summary process of Judge Lynch.'' 

The majority of the committee appointed 
made a report as follows : 

Whereas the subject of slavery is inseparably 
connected with the laws of many of the states in 
this Union, with which it is by no means proper 
for an ecclesiastical judicature to interfere, and 
involves many considerations in regard to which 
great diversity of opinion and intensity of feeling 
are known to exist in the churches represented in 
this Assembly : And whereas there is great reasor 
to believe that any action on the part of this Aj 



210 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



seinbly, in reference to this subject, would tend to 
distra'ct and divide our churches, and would 
iv ibably in no wise promote the benefit of those 
whose welfare is immediately contemplated in the 
memorials in question. 
Therefore, Resolved, 

1. That it is not expedient for the Assembly to 
take any further order in relation to this subject. 

2. That as the notes which have been expunged 
from our public formularies, and which some of 
the memorials referred to the committee request 
to have restored, were introduced irregularly, 
never had the sanction of the church, and there- 
fore never possessed any authority, the General 
Ass smbly has no power, nor would they think it 
expedient, to assign them a place in the authorized 
standards of the church. 

The minority of the committee, the Rev. 
Messrs. Dickey and Beman, reported as 
follows : 

Resolved, 

1. That the buying, selling, or holding a human 
being as property, is in the sight of God a heinous 
sin, and ought to subject the doer of it to the 
censures of the church. 

2. That it is the duty of every one, and espe- 
cially of every Christian, who may be involved in 
this "sin, to free himself from its entanglement 
without delay. 

3. That it is the duty of every one, especially 
of every Christian, in the meekness and firmness 
of the gospel to plead the cause of the poor and 
needy, by testifying against the principle and 
practice of slave-holding ; and to use his best en- 
deavors to deliver the church of God from the 
evil ; and to bring about the emancipation of the 
slaves in those United States, and throughout the 
world. 

The slave-holding delegates, to the number 
of forty-eight, met apart, and Resolved, 

That if the General Assembly shall undertake 
rcise authority on the subject of slavery, so 
as to make it an immorality, or shall in any way 
declare that Christians are' criminal in holding 
slavi s. that a declaration shall be presented _ by 
the Southern delegation declining their jurisdiction 
in the ease, and our determination not to submit 
to such decision. 

I;i view of these conflicting reports, the 
Assembly resolved as follows: 

Inasmuch as the constitution of the Presbyte- 
rian Church, in its preliminary and fundamental 
principles, declares that no church judicatories 
iughi to pretend to make laws to bind the con- 
science in virtue of ih ir own authority; and as 
the urgency of the business id' the Assembly, and 
the shortness of the time during which they can 
continue in session, render it impossible to dolib- 
i fate and decide judici >usly on the subject of 
slavery in its relation to the church; therefore, 
Resolved, That thiB whole subject be indefinitely 
postponed. 

The amount of the slave-trade at the 
time when the General Assembly refused 
to act upon the subject of slavery at all, 
may be inferred from the following items. 



The Virginia Times, in an article pub- 
lished in this very year of 1836, estimated 
the number of slaves exported for sale 
from that state alone, during the twelve 
months preceding, at forty thousand. The 
Natchez (Miss.) Courier says that in the 
same year the States of Alabama, Missouri 
and Arkansas, received two hundred and 
fifty thousand slaves from the, more northern 
states. If we deduct from these all who 
may be supposed to have emigrated with 
their masters, still what an immense trade 
is here indicated ! 

The Rev. James H. Dickey, who moved 
the resolutions above presented, had seen 
some sights which would naturally incline 
him to wish the Assembly to take some 
action on the subject, as appears from the 
following account of a slave-coffle, from his 
pen. 

In the summer of 1822, as I returned with my 
family from a visit to the Barrens of Kentucky, I 
witnessed a scene such as I never witnessed be- 
fore, and such as I hope never to witness again. 
Having passed through Paris, in Bourbon county, 
Ky., the sound of music (beyond a little rising 
ground) attracted my attention. I looked for- 
ward, and saw the Hag of my country waving. 
Supposing that I was about to meet a military 
parade, I drove hastily to the side of the road; 
and, having gained the ascent, I discovered (I sup- 
pose) about forty black men all chained together 
after the following manner : each of them was 
handcuffed, and they were arranged in rank and 
file. A chain perhaps forty feet long, the size of 
a fifth-horse-chain, was stretched between the two 
ranks, to which short chains were joined, which 
connected with the handcuffs. Behind them were, 
I suppose, about thirty women, in double rank, 
the couples tied hand to hand. A solemn sadness 
sat on every countenance, and the dismal silence 
of this march of despair was interrupted only by 
the sound of two violins ; yes, as if to add insult 
to injury, the foremost couple were furnished with 
a violin a-piece ; the second couple were orna- 
mented with cockades, while near the centre 
waved the republican flag, carried by a band liter- 
ally in chains. 1 could n. 4 forbear exclaiming to 
the lordly driver wdio rode at his ease along-side^ 
" Heaven will curse that man who engages in 
such traffic, and the government that protects him 
in it!" I pursued my journey till evening, and 
put up for the night, when I mentioned the 
scene I had witnessed. "Ah!" cried thy land- 
lady, " that is my brother!"' Prom her 1 learned 
that his name is Stone, of Bourbon county. Ken- 
tucky, in partnership with one Kiiuiingham, of 
Paris; and that a few days before he had pur- 
chased a negro-woman from a man in Nicholas 
county. She refused to go with him; he at- 
tempted to compel her, but she defended herself. 

Without further ceremony, lie stepped back, and, 
by a blow on the side of her head with the butt 
of his whip, brought her to the ground ; lie tied 
her, and drove her off. 1 learned further, that 
besides the drove I had seen, there were about 
thirty shut up in the Paris prison for safe-keep- 
ing, to be added to the company, and that they 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 



211 



were designed for the Orleans market. And to 
this they are doomed for no other crime than that 
of a hlack skin and curled locks. Shall I not 
visit for these things ? saith the Lord. Shall not 
my soul be avenged on such a nation as this ? 

It cannot be possible that these Christian 
men realized these things, or, at most, they 
realized them just as we realize the most tre- 
mendous truths of religion, dimlj and feebly. 
Two years after, the General Assembly, 
by a sudden and very unexpected movement, 
passed a vote exscinding, without trial, from 
the communion of the church, four synods, 
comprising the most active and decided anti- 
slavery portions of the church. The reasons 
alleged were, doctrinal differences and eccle- 
siastical practices inconsistent with Presby- 
terianism. By this act about five hundred 
ministers and sixty thousand members were 
cut off from the Presbyterian Church. 

That portion of the Presbyterian Church 
called New School, considering this act un- 
just, refused to assent to it, joined the ex- 
scinded synods, and formed themselves into 
the New School General Assembly. In this 
communion only three slave-holding pres- 
byteries remained. In the old there were 
between thirty and forty. 

The course of the Old School Assembly, 
after the separation, in relation to the sub- 
ject of slavery, may be best expressed by 
quoting one of their resolutions, passed in 
1845. Having some decided anti-slavery 
members in its body, and being, moreover, 
addressed on the subject of slavery by asso- 
ciated bodies, they presented, on this year, 
the following deliberate statement of their 
policy. (Minutes for 1845, p. 18.) 



Resolved, 1st. That the General Assembly of the 
Presbyterian Church in the United States was 
originally organized, and-has since continued the 
bond of union in the church, upon the conceded 
principle that the existence, of domestic slavery, under 
the circumstances in which it is found in the South- 
ern portion of the country, * no bar to Christian 
communion. 

2. That the petitions that ask u.- Assembly to 
make the holding of slaves in itself a matter of 
discipline do virtually require this judicatory to 
dissolve itself, and abandon the organization under 
which, by the divine blessing, it lias so long pros- 
pered. The tendency is evidently to separate the 
Northern from the Southern portion of the church, 
— a result which every good Christian must de- 
plore, as tending to the dissolution of the Union of 
our beloved country, and which every enlightened 
Christian will oppose, as bringing about a ruinous 
and unnecessary schism between brethren who 
maintain a common faith. 

Yeas, Ministers and Elders, 168. 

Nays, " " " 13. 

It is scarcely necessary to add a comment 
to this very explicit declaration. It is the 
plainest possible disclaimer of any protest 



against slavery ; the plainest possible state- 
ment that the existence of the ecclesiastical 
organization is of more importance than all 
the moral and social considerations which are 
involved in a full defence and practice of 
American slavery. 

The next year a large number of petitions 
and remonstrances were presented, request- 
ing the Assembly to utter additional testi- 
mony against slavery. 

In reply to the petitions, the General As- 
sembly reaffirmed all their former testimonies 
on the subject of slavery for sixty years 
back, and also affirmed that the previous 
year's declaration must not be understood as 
a retraction of that testimony; in other words, 
they expressed it as their opinion, in the 
words of 1818, that slavery is " wholly 

OPPOSED TO THE LAW OF GOD," and " TO- 
TALLY IRRECONCILABLE WITH THE PRE- 
CEPTS OP the gospel of Christ; " and 
yet that they " had formed their church or- 
ganization upon the conceded pHnciple that 
the existence of it, under the circumstances 
in which it is found in the Southern States 
of the Union, is no bar to Christian com- 
munion." 

Some members protested against this ac- 
tion. (Minutes, 1846. Overture No. 17.) 
Great hopes were at first entertained of the 
New School body. As a body, it was com- 
posed mostly of anti-slavery men. It had 
in it those synods whose anti-slavery opin- 
ions and actions had been, to say the least, 
one very efficient cause for their excision 
from the church. It had only three slave- 
holding presbyteries. The power was all in 
its own hands. Now, if ever, was their 
time to cut this loathsome incumbrance 
wholly adrift, and stand up, in this, age of 
concession and conformity to the world, a 
purely protesting church, free from all com- 
plicity with this most dreadful national im- 
morality. 

On the first session of the General 
Assembly, this course was most vehemently 
urged, by many petitions and memorials. 
These memorials were referred to a commit- 
tee of decided anti-slavery men. The ar- 
gument on one side was, that the time 
was now come to take decided measures 
to cut free wholly from all pro-slavery com- 
plicity, and avow their principles with de- 
cision, even though it should repel all such 
churches from their communion as were not 
prepared for immediate emancipation. 

On the other hand, the majority of the 
committee were urged by opposing con 
erations. The brethren from slave si 
made to them representations somewhat like 



212 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



these: "Brethren, our hearts are with 
you. We are with you in faith, in char- 
ity, in prayer. We sympathized in the 
injury that had heen done you by excision. 
We stood by you then, and are ready to 
stand by you still. We have no sympathy 
with the party that have expelled you, and 
we do not wish to go back to them. As to 
this matter of slavery, we do not differ from 
you. We consider it an evil. We mourn 
and lament over it. We are trying, by 
gradual and peaceable means, to exclude it 
from our churches. We are going as far in 
advance of the sentiment of our churches as 
we consistently can. We cannot come up to 
more decided action without losing our hold 
over them, and, as we think, throwing back 
the cause of emancipation. If you begin in 
this decided manner, we cannot hold our 
churches in the union ; they will divide, and 
go to the Old School." 

Here was a very strong plea, made by 
good and sincere men. It was an appeal, 
too, to the most generous feelings of the 
heart. It was, in effect, saying, " Brothers, we 
stood by you, and fought your battles, when 
everything was going against you ; and, now 
that you have the power in your hands, are 
you going to use it so as to cast us out?" 

These men. strong anti-slavery men as 
they were, were affected. One member of 
the committee foresaw and feared the result. 
He felt and suggested that the course pro- 
posed conceded the whole question. The 
m ijority thought, on the whole, that it was 
best to postpone the subject. The com- 
mittee reported that the applicants, for 
reasons satisfactory to themselves, had with- 
drawn their papers. 

The next year, in 1839, the subject was 
resumed ; and it was again urged that the 
Assembly should take high and decided 
and unmistakable ground ; and certainly, if 
we consider that all this time not a single 
church had emancipated its slaves, and that 
the power of the institution was everywhere 
stretching and growing and increasing, it 
would certainly seem that something more 
efficient was necessary than a general un- 
derstanding that the church agreed with the 
testimony delivered in 1818. It was strongly 
represented that it was time something was 
done. This year the Assembly decided to 
refer the subject to presbyteries, to do what 
they deemed advisable. The words employed 
were these : '*' Solemnly referring the whole 
subject to the lower judicatories, to take 
uch action as in their judgment is most 



judicious, and adapted to remove the evil." 
This of course deferred, but did not avert, 
the main question. 

This brought, in 1840, a much larger 
number of memorials and petitions ; and 
very strong attempts were made by the 
abolitionists to obtain some decided action. 

The committee this year referred to what 
had been done last year, and declared it in- 
expedient to do anything further. The 
subject was indefinitely postponed. At this 
time it was resolved that the Assembly 
should meet only once in three years.* Ac- 
cordingly, it did not meet till 1843. In 
1843, several memorials were again pre- 
sented, and some resolutions offered to the 
Assembly, of which this was one (Minutes of 
the General Assembly for 1843, p. 15) : 

Resolved, That we affectionately and earnestly 
urge upon the Ministers, Sessions, Presbyteries 
and Synods connected with this Assembly, that 
they treat this as all other sins of great magni- 
tude ; and, by a diligent, kind and faithful appli- 
cation of the means which God has given them, 
by instruction, remonstrance, reproof and effective 
discipline, seek to purify the church of this great 
iniquity. 

This resolution they declined. They 
passed the following : 

Whereas there is in this Assembly great diver- 
sity of opinion as to the proper and best mode of 
action on the subject of slavery ; and whereas, 
in such circumstances, any expression of senti- 
ment would carry with it but little weight, as it 
would be passed by a small majority, and must 
operate to produce alienation and division ; and 
whereas the Assembly of 1839, with great unan- 
imity, referred this whole subject to the lower 
judicatories, to take such order as in their judg- 
ment might be adapted to remove the evil ; — Re- 
solved, That the Assembly do not think it for the 
edification of the church for this body to take any 
action on the subject. 

They, however, passed the following : 

Resolved, That the fashionable amusement of 
promiscuous dancing is so entirely unseriptural, 
and eminently and exclusively that of" the world 
which lieth in wickedness," and so wholly incon- 
sistent with the spirit of Christ, and with that 
propriety of Christian deportment and that purity 
of heart which his followers are bound to maintain, 
as to render it not only improper and injurious for 
professing Christians either to partake in it, or to 
qualify their children for it, by teaching them the 
art, but also to call for the faithful and judicious 
exercise of discipline on the part of Church Ses- 
sions, when any of the members of their churches 
have been guilty. 

Three years after, in 1846, the General 

* Tho synods wwo also uiado courts of last appeal iu 
judicial cases. 



KEY" TO UNCLE TOJl's CABIN. 



213 



Assembly published the following declaration 
of sentiment: 

1. The system of slavery, as it exists in these 
United States, viewed either in the laws of the 
several states which sanction it, or in its actual 
operation and results in society, is intrinsically 
unrighteous and oppressive ; and is opposed to the 
prescriptions of the law of God, to the spirit and 
precepts of the gospel, and to the best interests 
of humanity. 

2. The testimony of the General Assembly, 
from A. D. 1787 to A. D. 1818, inclusive, has 
condemned it ; and it remains still the recorded 
testimony of the Presbyterian Church of these 
United States against it, from which we do not 
recede. 

8. We cannot, therefore, withhold the expres- 
sion of our deep regret that slavery should be 
continued and countenanced by any of the mem- 
bers of our churches ; and we do earnestly exhort 
both them and the churches among whom it 
exists to use all means in their power to put it 
away from them. Its perpetuation among them 
cannot fail to be regarded by multitudes, influenced 
by their example, as sanctioning the system por- 
trayed in it, and maintained by the statutes of the 
several slave-holding states, wherein they dwell. 
Nor can any mere mitigation of its severity, 
prompted by the humanity and Christian feeling 
of any who continue to hold their fellow-men in 
bondage, be regarded either as a testimony against 
the system, or as in the least degree changing its 
essential character. 

4. But, while we believe that many evils inci- 
dent to the system render it important and obli- 
gatory to bear testimony against it, yet would we 
not undertake to determine the degree of moral 
turpitude on the part of individuals involved by 
it. This will doubtless be found to vary, in the 
sight of God, according to the degree of light and 
other circumstances pertaining to each. In view 
of all the embarrassments and obstacles in the 
way of emancipation interposed by the statutes 
of the slave-holding states, and by the social influ- 
ence affecting the views and conduct of those 
involved in it, we cannot pronounce a judgment of 
general and promiscuous condemnation, implying 
that destitution of Christian principle and feeling 
which should exclude from the table of the Lord 
all who should stand in the legal relation of mas- 
ters to slaves, or justify us in withholding our 
ecclesiastical and Christian fellowship from them. 
We rather sympathize with, and would seek to 
succor them in their embarrassments, believing 
that separation and secession among the churches 
and their members are not the methods God 
approves and sanctions for the reformation of his 
church. 

5. While, therefore, we feel bound to bear our 
testimony against slavery, and to exhort our be- 
loved brethren to remove it from them as speedily 
as possible, by all appropriate and available 
means, we do at the same time condemn all divi- 
sive and sehismatical measures, tending to destroy 
the unity and disturb the peace of our church, 
and deprecate the spirit of denunciation and in- 
flicting severities, which would cast from the fold 
tfaoso whom we are rather bound, by the spirit of 
the gospel, and the obligations of our covenant, 
to instruct, to counsel, to exhort, and thus to lead 
in the ways of God ; and towards whom, even 



though they may err, we ought to exercise for- 
bearance and bro'therly love. 

6. As a court of our Lord Jesus Christ, we 
possess no legislative authority ; and as the Gen- 
eral Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, we 
possess no judiciary authority. We have no right 
to institute and prescribe a test of Christian char- 
acter _and church membership, not recognized and 
sanctioned in the sacred Scriptures, and in our 
standards, by which we have agreed to walk. We 
must leave, therefore, this matter with the ses- 
sions, presbyteries and synods, —the judicatories 
to whompertains the right of judgment to act in 
the administration of discipline, as they may 
judge it to be their duty, constitutionally subject 
to the General Assembly only in the way of gen- 
eral review and control. 

When a boat is imperceptibly going down 
stream on a gentle but strong current, we 
can see its passage only by comparing ob- 
jects with each other on the shore. 

If this declaration of the New-school 
General Assembly be compared with that of 
1818, it will be found to be far less out- 
spoken and decided in its tone, while in the 
mean time slavery had become four-fold more 
powerful. In 1S18 the Assembly states that 
the most virtuous portion of the community 
in slave states abhor slavery, and wish its 
extermination. In 1846 the Assembly 
states with regret that slavery is still con- 
tinued and countenanced by any of the 
members of our churches. The testimony 
of 1818 has the frank, outspoken air of a 
unanimous document, where there was but 
one opinion. That of 1846 has the guarded 
air of a compromise ground out between the 
upper and nether millstone of two contend- 
ing parties, — it is winnowed, guarded, cau- 
tious and careful. 

Considering the document, however, in 
itself, it is certainly a \ery good one ; and it 
would be a very proper expression of Chris- 
tian feeling, had it related to an evil of any 
common magnitude, and had it been uttered 
in any common crisis ; but let us consider 
what Avas the evil attacked, and what was 
the crisis. Consider the picture which the 
Kentucky Synod had drawn of the actual 
state of things among them : — " The mem- 
bers of slave-families separated, never to 
meet again until the final judgment; broth- 
ers and sisters, parents and children, hus- 
bands and wives, daily torn asunder, and 
permitted to see each other no more; the 
shrieks and agonies, proclaiming as with 
trumpet-tongue the iniquity and cruelty of 
the system ; the cries of the sufferers go- 
ing up to the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth 
not a neighborhood where those heart rend- 
ing scenes are not displayed ; not a village 



214 



KEF TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



or road without the sad procession of mana- 
cled outcasts, whose chains and mournful 
countenances tell they are exiled by force 
from all that heart holds dear; Christian 
professors rending the mother from her child, 
to sell her into returnless exile." 

This was the language of the Kentucky 
Synod fourteen years before; and those scenes 
had been going on ever since, and are going 
on now, as the advertisements of every 
Southern paper show ; and yet the church 
of Christ since 1818 had done nothing but 
express regret, and hold grave metaphysical 
discussions as to whether slavery was an 
"evil per se," and censure the rash action 
of men Avho, in utter despair of stopping 
the evil any other way, tried to stop it by 
excluding slave-holders from the church. As 
if it were not better that one slave-holder in 
a hundred should stay out of the church, if 
he be peculiarly circumstanced, than that 
all this horrible agony and iniquity should 
continually receive the sanction of the 
church's example ! Should not a generous 
Christian man say, "If church excision will 
stop this terrible evil, let it come, though it 
does bear hardly upon me ! Better that I 
suffer a little injustice than that this horri- 
ble injustice be still credited to the account 
of Christ's church. Shull I embarrass the 
whole church with my embarrassments 1 
What if I am careful and humane in my 
treatment of my slaves, — what if, in my 
heart, I have repudiated the wicked doctrine 
that they are my property, and am treating 
them as my brethren, — what am I then 
doing '! All the credit of my example goes 
to give force to the system. The church 
ought to reprove this fearful injustice, 
and reprovers ought to have clean hands ; 
and if I cannot really get clear of this, I 
had better keep out of the church till I 
can." 

Let us consider, also, the awful intrench- 
ments and strength of the evil against which 
this very moderate resolution was discharged. 
"A money power of two thousand millions of 
dollars, held by a small body of able and 
desperate men ; that body raised into a po- 
litical aristocracy by special constitutional 
provisions ; cotton, the product of slave- 
labor, forming the basis of our whole foreign 
commerce, and the commercial class thus 
subsidized ; the press bought up ; the 
Southern pulpit reduced to vassalage ; the 
heart of the common people chilled by a 
bitter prejudice against the black race ; and 
our leading men bribed by ambition either 



to silence or open hostility."* And now, in 
this condition of thing's, the whole weight 
of these churches goes in support of 
slavery, from the fact of their containing 
slave-holders. No matter if they did not 
participate in the abuses of the system ; no- 
body wants them to do that. The slave- 
power does not wish professors of religion to 
separate families, or over-work their slaves, 
or do any disreputable thing, — that is not 
their part. The slave power wants pious, 
tender-hearted, generous and humane mas- 
ters, and must have them, to hold up the 
system against the rising moral sense of the 
world ; and the more pious and generous the 
better. Slavery could not stand an hour 
without these men. What then ? These 
men uphold the system, and that great 
anti-slavery body of ministers uphold these 
men. That is the final upshot of the mat- 
ter. 

Paul says that we must remember those 
that are in bonds, as bound with them. Sup- 
pose that this General Assembly had been 
made up of men who had been fugitives. 
Suppose one of them had had his daughters 
sent to the New Orleans slave-market, like 
Emily and Mary Edmondson ; that another's 
daughter had died on the overland passage 
in a slave-coffle, with no nurse but a slave- 
driver, like poor Emily Russell ; another's 
wife died broken-hearted, when her chil- 
dren were sold out of her bosom ; and 
another had a half-crazed mother, whose 
hair had been turned prematurely whito 
with agony. Suppose these scenes of ago- 
nizing partings, with shrieks and groans, 
which the Kentucky Synod says have been 
witnessed so long among the slaves, had 
been seen in these ministers' families, and 
that they had come up to this discussion 
with their hearts as scarred and seared 
as the heart of poor old Paul Edmondson, 
when he came to New York to beg for his 
daughters. Suppose that they saw that the 
horrid system by which all this had been 
done was extending every hour; that pro- 
fessed Christians in every denomination at 
the South declared it to be an appointed in- 
stitution of God ; that all the wealth, and all 
the rank, and all the fashion, in the country, 
were committed in its favor ; and that they, 
like Aaron, were sent to stand between the 
living and the dead, that the plague might 
be stayed. 

Most humbly, most earnestly, let it be 

* Speech of W. Phillips, Boston. 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



215 



submitted to the Christians of this nation, 
and to Christians of all nations, for such an 
hour and such a crisis was this action suf- 
ficient ? Did it do anything } Has it had 
the least effect in stopping the evil I And, in 
such a horrible time, ought not something 
to be done which will have that effect ? 

Let us continue the history. It will be 
observed that the resolution concludes by re- 
ferring the subj ect to subordinate j udicatories. 
The New School Presbytery of Cincinnati, in 
which were the professors of Lane Seminary, 
suspended Mr. Graham from the ministry for 
teaching that the Bible justified slavery; 
thereby establishing the principle that this 
was a heresy inconsistent with Christian 
fellowship. The Cincinnati Synod con- 
firmed this decision. The General Assem- 
bly reversed this decision, and restored Mr. 
Graham. The delegate from that presby- 
tery told them that they would never re- 
trace their steps, and so it proved. The 
Cincinnati Presbytery refused to receive him 
back. All honor be to them for it ! Here, 
at least, was a principle established, as far 
as the New School Cincinnati Presbytery is 
concerned, — and a principle as far as the 
General Assembly is concerned. By this 
act the General Assembly established the 
fact that the New School Presbyterian 
Church had not decided the Biblical defence 
of slavery to be a heresy. 

For a man to teach that there are not 
three persons in the Trinity is heresy. 

For a man to teach that all these three 
Persons authorize a system which even Ma- 
hometan princes have abolished from mere 
natural shame and conscience, is no heresy ! 

The General Assembly proceeded further 
to show that it considered this doctrine no 
heresy, in the year 1846, by inviting the 
Old School General Assembly to the cele- 
bration of the Lord's supper with them. 
Connected with this Assembly were, not only 
Dr. Smylie, and all those bodies who, among 
them, had justified not only slavery in the 
abstract, but some of its worst abuses, by 
the word of God ; yet the New School body 
thought these opinions no heresy which 
should be a bar to Christian communion ! 

In 1849 the General Assembly declared* 
that there had been no information before the 
Assembly to prove that the members in 
slave states were not doing all that they could, 
in the providence of God, to bring about the 
possession and enjoyment of liberty by the 
enslaved. This is a remarkable declaration, 
-if we consider that in Kentucky there are 



Minutes of the New School Assembly, p. 188. 



no stringent laws against emancipation, and 
that, either in Kentucky or Virginia, the 
slave can be set free by simply giving him a 
pass to go across the line into the next 
state. 

In 1850 a proposition was presented in 
the Assembly, by the Rev. H. Curtiss, of In- 
diana, to the following effect : "That the en- 
slaving of men, or holding them as property, 
is an offence, as defined in our Book of Dis- 
cipline, ch. 1, sec. 8; and as such it calls for 
inquiry, correction and removal, in the man- 
ner prescribed by our rules, and should be 
treated with a due regard to all the aggra- 
vating or mitigating circumstances in each 
case." Another proposition was from an 
elder in Pennsylvania, affirming " that slave- 
holding was, prima facie, an offence within 
the meaning of our Book of Discipline, and 
throwing upon the slave-holder the burden 
of showing such circumstances as will take 
away from him the guilt of the offence."* 

Both these propositions were rejected. 
The following was adopted: " That slavery 
is fraught with many and great evils ; 
that they deplore the workings of the whole 
system of slavery ; that the holding of our 
fellow-men in the condition of slavery, except 
in those cases where it is unavoidable from 
the laws of the state, the obligations of 
guardiansliip, or the demands of human- 
ity, is an offence, in the proper import of 
that term, as used in the Book of Discipline, 
and should be regarded and treated in the 
same manner as other offences ; also refer- 
ring this subject to sessions and presbyter- 
ies." The vote stood eighty-four to six- 
teen, under a written protest of the minor- 
ity, who were for no action in the present 
state of the country. Let the reader again 
compare this action with that of 1818, and 
he will see that the boat is still drifting, — 
especially as even this moderate testimony 
was not unanimous. Again, in this year of 
1850, they avow themselves ready to meet, 
in a spirit of fraternal kindness and Chris- 
tian love, any overtures for reunion which 
may be made to them by the Old School 
body. 

In 1850 was passed the cruel fugitive 
slave law. What deeds were done then ! 
Then to our free states were transported 
those scenes of fear and agony before acted 
only on slave soil. Churches were broken 
up. Trembling Christians fled. Husbands 
and wives were separated. f Then to the 
poor African was fulfilled the dread doom 

* Theso two resolutions are given on the authority of 
Goodel's History. I do not find them in the Miuutes. 



216 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



denounced on the wandering Jew, — " Thou 
shalt find no ease, neither shall the sole of 
thy foot have rest ; but thy life shall hang in 
doubt before thee, and thou shalt fear day 
and night, and shalt have no assurance of 
thy life." Then all the world went one 
way, — all the wealth, all the power, all the 
fashion. Now, if ever, was a time for Christ's 
church to stand up and speak for the poor. 

The General Assembly met. SHe was 
earnestly memorialized to speak out. Never 
was a more glorious opportunity to show 
that the kingdom of Christ is not of this 
world. A protest then, from a body so nu- 
merous and respectable, might have saved 
the American church from the disgrace 
it now wears in the eyes of all nations. 
that she had once spoken ! What said the 
Presbyterian Church ? She said nothing, 
and the thanks of political leaders were ac- 
corded to her. She had done all they de- 
sired. 

Meanwhile, under this course of things, 
the number of presbyteries in slave-holding 
states had increased from three to twenty ! 
and this church has now under its care from 
fifteen to twenty thousand members in slave 
states. 

So much for the course of a decided anti- 
slavery body in union with a few slave-hold- 
ing churches. So much for a most discreet, 
judicious, charitable, and brotherly attempt 
to test by experience the question, What 
communion hath light with darkness, and 
what concord hath Christ with Belial '? The 
slave-system is darkness, — the slave-system 
is Belial ! and every attempt to harmonize it 
with the profession of Christianity will be just 
like these. Let it be here recorded, how- 
ever, that a small body of the most deter- 
mined opponents of slavery in the Pres- 
byterian Church seceded and formed the 
Free Presbyterian Church, whose terms 
of communion are, an entire withdrawal 
from slave-holding. Whether this principle 
be a correct one, or not, it is worthy of re- 
mark that it was adopted and carried out by 
the Quakers, — the only body of Christians 
involved, in this evil who have ever suc- 
ceeded in freeing themselves from it. 

Whether church disci) dine and censure is 
an appropriate medium tor correcting such 
immoralities and heresies in individuals, or 
not, it is enough for the case that this has 
been the established opinion and practice of 
the Presbyterian Church. 

If the argument of Charles Sumner be 
contempl ited, it will be seen that the history 
of this Presbyterian Church and the history 



of our United States have strong pointg 
of similarity. In both, at the outset, the 
strong influence was anti-slavery, even among 
slave-holders. In both there was no differ- 
ence of opinion as to the desirableness of 
abolishing slavery ultimately ; both made a 
concession, the smallest which could possibly 
be imagined ; both made the concession in 
all good faith, contemplating the speedy re- 
moval and extinction of the evil ; and the 
history of both is alike. The little point 
of concession spread, and absorbed, and ac- 
quired, from year to year, till the United 
States and the Presbyterian Church stand 
just where they do. Worse has been the 
history of the Methodist Church. The his- 
tory of the Baptist Church shows the same 
principle ; and, as to the Episcopal Church, 
it has never done anything but comply, either 
North or South. It differs from all the rest 
in that it has never had any resisting ele- 
ment, except now and then a protestant, 
like William Jay, a worthy son of him who 
signed the Declaration of Independence. 

The slave power has been a united, con- 
sistent, steady, uncompromising principle. 
The resisting element has been, for many 
years, wavering, self-contradictory, compro- 
mising. There has been, it is true, a deep, 
and ever increasing hostility. to slavery in 
a decided majority of ministers and church- 
members in free states, taken as individ- 
uals. Nevertheless, the sincere opponents 
of slavery have been unhappily divided among 
themselves as to principles and measures, 
the extreme principles and measures of some 
causing a hurtful reaction in others. Besides 
this, other great plans of benevolence have 
occupied their time and attention; and the re- 
sult has been that they have formed altogether 
inadequate conceptions of the extent to which 
the cause of God on earth is imperilled by 
American slavery, and of the duty of Chris- 
tians in such a crisis. They have never had 
such a conviction as has aroused, and called 
out, and united their energies, on this, as on 
other great causes. Meantime, great organic 
influences in church and state are, much 
against their wishes, neutralizing their influ- 
ence against slavery, — sometimes even ar- 
raying it in its favor. The perfect inflex- 
ibility of the slave-system, and its absolute 
refusal to allow any discussion of the subject, 
has reduced all those who wish to have re- 
ligious action in common with slave-holding 
churches to the alternative of either giving 
up the support of the South for that object, 
or giving up their protest against slavery. 

This has held out a strong temptation to 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



217 



men who have had benevolent and laudable 
objects to carry, and who did not realize the 
full peril of the slave-system, nor appreciate 
the moral power of Christian protest against 
it. When, therefore, cases have arisen where 
the choice lay between sacrificing what they 
considered the interests of a good object, or 
giving up their right of protest, they have 
generally preferred the latter. The decision 
has always gone in this way : The slave power 
will not concede, — we must. The South 
says, " We will take no religious book that 
has anti-slavery principles in it." The Sun- 
day School Union drops Mr. Gallaudet's 
History of Joseph. Why? Because they 
approve of slavery? Not at all. They 
look upon slavery with horror. What then ? 
" The South will not read our books, if we 
do not do it. They will not give up, and we 
must. We can do more good by intro- 
ducing gospel truth with this omission than 
vre can by using our protestant power." 
This, probably, was thought and said hon- 
estly. The argument is plausible, but the 
concession is none the less real. The slave 
power has got the victory, and got it by the 
very best of men from the very best of mo- 
tives ; and, so that it has the victory, it 
cares not how it gets it. And although it 
may be said that the amount in each case of 
these concessions is in itself but small, yet, 
when we come to add together all that have 
been made from time to time by every differ- 
ent denomination, and by every different 
benevolent organization, the aggregate is 
truly appalling ; and, in consequence of all 
these united, what are we now reduced to? 

Here we are, in this crisis, — here in this 
nineteenth century, when all the world is 
dissolving and reconstructing on principles 
of universal liberty, — we Americans, who 
are sending our Bibles and missionaries to 
Christianize Mahometan lands, are uphold- 
ing, with all our might and all our influence, 
a system of worn-out heathenism which even 
the Bey of Tunis has repudiated ! 

The Southern church has baptized it in 
the name of the Father, the Son, and the 
Holy Ghost. This worn-out, old, effete 
system of Roman slavery, which Christian- 
ity once gradually but certainly abolished, 
has been dug up out of its dishonored grave, 
a few laws of extra cruelty, such as Rome 
never knew, have been added to it, and now, 
baptized and sanctioned by the whole South- 
ern church, it is going abroad conquering 
and to conquer! The only power left to the 
Northern church is the protesting power: 
and will they use it ? Ask the Tract Soci- 



ety if they will publish a tract on the sin- 
fulness of slavery, though such tract should 
be made up solely from the writings of Jon- 
athan Edwards or Dr. Hopkins! Ask the 
Sunday School Union if it will publish the 
facts about this heathenism, as it has facts 
about Burrnah and Hiudostan ! Will they ? 
0, that they would answer Yes / 

Now, it is freely conceded that all these 
sad results have come in consequence of the 
motions and deliberations of good men, who 
meant well ; but it has been well said that, 
in critical times, when one wrong step en- 
tails the most disastrous consequences, to 
mean well is not enough. 

In the crisis of a disease, to mean well 
and lose the patient, — in the height of a tem- 
pest, to mean well and wreck the ship. — « in 
a great moral conflict, to mean well and lose 
the battle, — these are things to be lamented. 
We are wrecking the ship, — we are losing 
the battle. There is no mistake about it. 
A little more sleep, a little more slumber, a 
little more folding of the hands to sleep, and 
we shall awake in the whirls of that mael- 
strom which has but one passage, and -that 
downward. 

There is yet one body of Christians whose 
influence we have not considered, and that a 
most important one, — the Congregationalists 
of New England and of the West. From 
the very nature of Congregationalism, she 
cannot give so united a testimony as Presby- 
terianism ; yet Congregationalism has spoken 
out on slavery. Individual bodies have 
spoken very strongly, and individual cler- 
gymen still stronger. They have remon- 
strated with the General Assembly, and 
they have very decided anti-slavery papers. 
But, considering the whole state of public 
sentiment, considering the critical nature of 
the exigency, the mighty sweep and force of 
all the causes which are going in favor of 
slavery, has the vehemence and force of the 
testimony of Congregationalism, as a body, 
been equal to the dreadful emergency? It 
has testimonies on record, very full and ex- 
plicit, on the evils of slavery ; but testimo- 
nies are not all that is wanted. There is 
abundance of testimonies on record in the 
Presbyterian Church, for that matter, quite 
as good and quite as strong as any that have 
been given by Congregationalism. . There 
have been quite as many anti-slavery men 
in the New School Presbyterian Church as in 
the Congregational, — quite as strong anti- 
slavery newspapers ; and the Presbyterian 
Church has had trial of this matter that the 
Congregational Church has never been ex- 



218 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



posed to. It has had slave-holders in i 
own communion ; and from this trial Congre- 
gationalism has, as yet, been mostly exempt. 
Being thus free, ought not the testimony 
of Congregationalism to have been more than 
equal ? ought it not to have done more than 
testify ? — ought it not to have fought for the 
question 1 ? Like the brave three hundred in 
Thermopylae left to defend the liberties of 
Greece, when all others had fled, should they 
not have thrown in heart and soul, body and 
spirit? Have they done it ? 

Compare the earnestness which Congre- 
gationalism has spent upon some other sub- 
jects with the earnestness which has been 
spent upon this. Dr. Taylor taught that all 
sin consists in ■ sinning, and therefore that 
there could be no sin till a person had sinned ; 
and Dr. Bushnell teaches some modifications 
of the doctrine of the Trinity, nobody seem- 
in<r to know precisely what. The South 
Carolina presbyteries teach that slavery is 
approved by God, and sanctioned by the ex- 
ample of patriarchs and prophets. Suppos- 
ing these, now, to be all heresies, which of 
them is the worst ? — which will bring the 
worst practical results 1 And, if Congrega- 
tionalism had fought this slavery heresy as 
some of her leaders fought Dr. Bushnell and 
Dr. Taylor, would not the style of battle 
have been more earnest? Have not both 
these men been denounced as dangerous here- 
siarchs, and as preaching doctrines that tend 
to infidelity? And pray where does this 
other doctrine tend ? As sure as there is a 
God in heaven is the certainty that, if the 
Bible really did defend slavery, fifty }^ears 
hence would see every honorable and high- 
minded man an infidel. 

Has, then, the past influence of Congre- 
gationalism been according to the nature of 
the exigency and the weight of the subject? 
But the late convention of Congregational- 
ists at Albany, including ministers both from 
New England and the Western States, did 
take a stronger and more decided ground. 
Here is their resolution: 

Resolved, That, in the opinion of this conven- 
tion, it is the tendency "I' the gospel, wherever 
it is preached in its purity, to correct ;ill social 
evils, and tq destroy sin in all its forms ; ami that 
it is the duty of Missionary Societies to grant aid 
to churches in slave-holding Btates in tin' support 
of such ministers only as shall so preach the gos- 
pel, and inculcate the principles and application 
of jrnspi-l discipline, that, with the blessing "f 
Qod, it shall have its Full effect in awakening and 
enlightening the moral Bense in regard t i slavery, 

and in bringing to pass the B] ly abolition of 

that stupendous wrong; and that wherever a min- 
ister is nut permitted so to preach, lie should, in 



ts [ accordance with the directions of Christ, " depart 
out of that city." 



This resolution is a matter of hope and 
gratulation in many respects. It was passed 
in a very large convention, — the largest ever 
assembled in this country, fully represent- 
\x\rr the Congregationalism of the United 
States, — and tht, occasion of its meeting was 
considered, in some sort, as marking a new 
era in the progress of this denomination. 

The resolution was passed unanimously. 
It is decided in its expression, and looks to 
practical action, which is what is wanted. It 
says it will support no ministers in slave 
states whose preaching does not tend to de- 
stroy slavery; and that, if they are not al- 
lowed to preach freely on the subject, they 
must depart. 

That the ground thus taken will be effi- 
ciently sustained, maybe inferred from the fact 
that the Home Missionary Society, which is 
the organ of this body, as well as of the New 
School Presbyterian Church, has uniformly 
taken decided ground upon this subject in 
their instructions to missionaries sent into 
slave states. These instructions are ably set 
forth in their report of March, 1853. When 
application was made to them, in 1850, from 
a slave state, for missionaries who would let 
slavery alone, they replied to them, in the 
most decided language, that it could not be 
done ; that, on the contrary, they must un- 
derstand that one grand object in sending 
missionaries to slave states is. as far as possi- 
ble, to redeem society from all forms of sin; 
and that, "if utter silence respecting slavery 
is to be maintained, one of the greatest in- 
ducements to send or retain missionaries in 
the slave states is taken away." 

The society furthermore instructed their 
missionaries, if they could not be heard on 
this subject in one city or village, to go 
to another ; and they express their convic- 
tion that their missionaries have made pro- 
gress in awakening the consciences of the 
people. They say that they do not stiller 
the subject to sleep; that they do not let it 
alone because it is a delicate subject, but 
they discharge their consciences, whether their 
message be well received, or whether, as in 
some instances, it subjects them to opposition, 
opprobrium, and personal danger: and that 
where their endeavors to do this have not 
been tolerated, they have, in repeated cases, 
at great sacrifice, resigned their position, and 
departed to other fields. In their report of 
this year they also quote letters from minis- 
ters in slave-holding states, by which it ap- 
pears that they have actually secured, in the 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



219 



iace of much opposition, the right publicly 
to preach and propagate their sentiments 
upon this subject. 

One of these missionaries says, speaking 
of slavery, " We are determined to remove 
this great difficulty in our way, or die in the 
attempt. As Christians and as freemen, we 
will suffer this libel on our religion and in- 
stitutions to exist no longer.". 

This is noble ground. 

And, while we are recording the protest- 
ing power, let us not forget the Scotch se- 
ceders and covenanters, who, with a perti- 
nacity and decision worthy of the children 
of the old covenant, have kept themselves 
clear from the sin of slavery, and have uni- 
formly protested against it. Let us remem- 
ber, also, that the Quakers did pursue a 
course which actually freed all their body 
from the sin of slave-holding, thus showing 
to all other denominations that what has been 
done once can be done again. Also, in 
all denominations, individual ministers and 
Christians, in hours that have tried men's 
souls, have stood up to bear their testimony. 
Albert Barnes, in Philadelphia, standing in 
the midst of a great, rich church, on the bor- 
ders of a slave state, and with all those tempt- 
ations to complicity which have silenced so 
many, has stood up, in calm fidelity, and 
declared the whole counsel of God upon this 
subject. Nay, more : he recorded his sol- 
emn protest, that " NO INFLUENCES OUT OF 
THE CHURCH COULD SUSTAIN SLAVERY AN 
HOUR, IF IT WERE NOT SUSTAINED IN IT;" 

and, in the last session of the General As- 
sembly, which met at Washington, disre- 
garding all suggestions of policy, he boldly 
held the Presbyterian Church up to the 
strength of her past declarations, and de- 
clared it her duty to attempt the entire abo- 
lition of slavery throughout the world. So, 
in darkest hour, Dr. Channing bore a noble 
testimony in Boston, for which his name 
shall ever live. So, in Illinois, E. P. Love- 
joy and Edward Beecher, with their asso- 
ciates, formed the Illinois Anti-slavery So- 
ciety, amid mobs and at the hazard of their 
lives ; and, a few hours after, Lovejoy was 
shot down in attempting to defend the twice- 
destroyed anti-slavery press. In the Old- 
school Presbyterian Church, William and 
Robert Breekehridge, President Young, and 
others, have preached in favor of emancipation 
in Kentucky. Le Roy Sunderland, in the 
Methodist Church, kept up his newspaper 
under ban of his superiors, and with a 
bribe on his- life of fifty thousand dollars. 
Torrey, meekly patient, died in a prison, 



saying, "If I am a guilty man, I am 
a very guilty one ; for I have helped four 
hundred slaves to freedom, who but for me 
would have died slaves." Dr. Nelson wa3 
expelled by mobs from Missouri for the 
courageous declaration of the truth on slave 
soil. All these were in the ministry. Nor 
are these all. Jesus Christ has not wholly 
deserted us yet. There have been those who 
have learned how joyful it is to suffer shame 
and brave death in a good cause. 

Also there have been private Christians 
who have counted nothing too dear for this 
sacred cause. Witness Richard Dillingham, 
and John Garrett, and a host of others, who 
took joyfully the spoiling of their goods. 

But yet, notwithstanding this, the awful 
truth remains, that the whole of what has 
been done by the church has not, as yet, per- 
ceptibly abated the evil. The great system 
is stronger than ever. It is confessedly the 
dominant power of the nation. The whole 
power of the government, and the whole power 
of the wealth, and the whole power of the 
fashion, and the practical organic workings of 
the large bodies of the church, are all gone 
one way. The church is familiarly quoted as 
being on the side of slavery. Statesmen on 
both sides of the question have laid that down 
as a settled fact. Infidels point to it with 
triumph; and America, too, is beholding 
another class of infidels, — a class that could 
have grown up only under such an influence. 
Men, whose whole life is one study and prac- 
tice of benevolence, are now ranked as infi- 
dels, because the position of church organiza- 
tions misrepresents Christianity, and they 
separate themselves from the church. We 
would offer no excuse for any infidels who 
take for their religion mere anti-slavery zeal, 
and, under this guise, gratify a malignant 
hatred of real Christianity. But such de- 
fences of slavery from the Bible as some of 
the American clergy have made are exactly 
fitted to make infidels of all honorable and 
high-minded men. The infidels of olden 
times were not much to be dreaded, but such 
infidels as these are not to be despised. Woe 
to the church when the moral standard of 
the infidel is higher than the standard of the 
professed Christian ! for the only armor that 
ever proved invincible to infidelity is the 
armor of righteousness. 

Let us see how the church organizations 
work now, practically. What do Bruin & 
Hill, Pulliam & Davis, Bolton, Dickins & 
Co., and Matthews, Bran ton & Co., depend 
upon to keep their slave-factories and slave- 
barracoons full, and their business brisk '? Is 



220 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



it to be supposed that they are not men like 
ourselves? Do they not sometimes tremble 
at the awful workings of fear, and despair, 
and agony, which they witness when they are 
tearing asunder living hearts in the depths of 
those fearful slave-prisons? What, then, 
keeps down the consciences of these traders? 
It is the public sentiment of the community 
where they live : and that public sentiment is 
made by ministers and church-members. The 
trader sees plaitdy enough a logical sequence 
between the declarations of the church and the 
practice of his trade. He sees plaitdy enough 
that, if slavery is sanctioned by God, and it 
is right to set it up in a new territory, it is 
right to take the means to do this; and, as 
slaves do not grow on bushes in Texas, it is 
necessary that there should be traders to 
gather up coffles and carry them out there ; — 
and, as they cannot always take whole fam- 
ilies, it is necessary that they should part 
them ; and, as slaves will not go by moral 
suasion, it is necessary that they should be 
forced ; and, as gentle force will not do, they 
must whip and torture. Hence come gags, 
thumb-screws, cowhides, blood, — all neces- 
sary measures of carrying out what Chris- 
tians say God sanctions. 

So goes the argument one way. Let us 
now trace it back the other. The South 
Carolina and Mississippi Presbyteries main- 
tain opinions which, in their legitimate re- 
sults, endorse the slave-trader. The Old 
School General Assembly maintains fellow- 
ship with these Presbyteries, without disci- 
pline or protest. The New School Assem- 
bly signifies its willingness to reunite with 
the Old. while, at the same time, it de- 
clares the system of slavery an abomina- 
tion, a gross violation of the most sacred 
rights, and so on. Well, now the chain 
is as complete as need be. All parts are 
in : every one standing in his place, and 
saying just what is required, and no more. 
The trader does the repulsive work, the 
Southern church defends him, the Northern 
church defends the South. Every one does 
as much for slavery as would be at all expe- 
dient, considering the latitude they live in. 
This is the practical result of the thing. 

The melancholy part of the matter is, 
that while a large body of New School men, 
and many Old School, are decided anti-slavery 
men, this denominational position carries 
their influence on the other side. As goes 
the General Assembly, so goes their influ- 
ence. Tiie following affecting letter on this 
subject was written by that eminently pious 
man, Dr. Nelson, whose work on Infidelity 



is one of the most efficient popular appeals 
that has ever appeared : 

[ have resided in North Carolina more than 
forty years, and been intimately acquainted with 
the system, and I can scarcely even think of its 
operati >ns without shedding tears. It causes me 
excessive grief to think of my own poor slaves, 
for whom I have for years been trying to lind a 
free home. It strikes me with equal astonish- 
ment and horror to hear Northern people make 
light of slavery. Had they seen and known a8 
much of it as I, they could not thus treat it, un- 
less callous to the deepest woes and degradation 
of humanity, and dead both to the religion and 
phiianthr ipy of the gospel. But many of them 
are doing just what the hardest-hearted tyrants 
of the South most desire. Those tyrants would 
not, on any account, have them advocate or even 
apologize for slavery in an unqualified manner. 
This would be bad policy with the North. I won- 
der that .Gerritt Smith should understand slavery 
so much better than most of the Northern people. 
How true was his remark, on a certain occasion, 
namely, that the South are laughing in their 
sleeves, to think what dupes they make of most 
of the people at the North in regard to the real 
character of slavery ! Well did Mr. Smith remark 
that the system, carried out on its fundamental 
principle, would as soon enslave any laboring white 
man as the African. But, if it were not for the 
support of the North, the fabric of blood would fall 
at once. And of all the efforts of public bodies 
at the North to sustain slavery, the Connecticut 
General Association has made the best one. I 
have never seen anything so well constructed in 
that line as their resolutions of June, 1836. The 
South certainly could not have asked anything 
more effectual. But, of all Northern periodicals, 
the New York Observer must have the preference, 
as an efficient support of slavery. I am not sure 
but it does more than all things combined to keep 
the dreadful system alive. It is just the succor 
demanded by the South. Its abuse of the abo- 
litionists is music in Southern ears, which operates 
as a charm. But nothing is equal to its harping 
upon the " religious privileges and instruction"' 
of the slaves of the South. And nothing could 
he so false and injurious (to the cause of freedom 
and religion) as the impression it gives on that 
subject. 1 say what I know when I speak in re- 
lation to this matter. I have been intimately ac- 
quainted with the religious opportunities of slaves, 
— in the constant habit of hearing the sermons 
which an; preached to them. And I solemnly 
affirm, that, during the forty years of my res- 
idence and observation in this line, I never heard 
a single one of these sermons but what was taken 
up with the obligations and duties of slaves t« 
their masters. Indeed, I never heard a Bermon to 
slaves but what made obedience to master., by the 
slaves the fundamental and supreme law of re- 
ligion. Any candid and intelligent man can de- 
cide whether such preaching is not, as to religious 
purposes, worse than none at all. 

Again : it is wonderful how the credulity of the 
North is subjected to imposition in regard to the 
kind, treatment of slaves. For myself, ( can clear 
up the apparent contradictions found in writers 
who have resided at or visited the South. The 
i " majority of slave-holders,*' say some, " treat 
| their slaves with kinduess." Now, this may be 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



221 



true in certain states and districts ; setting aside 
all questions of treatment, except such as refer to 
thabody. And yet. while the " majority of slave- 
holders" in a certain section may he kind, the 
majority of slaves in that section will he treated 
with cruelty. This is the truth in many such 
cases, that while there may be thirty men who may 
have but one slave apiece, and that a house-ser- 
vant, a single man in their neighborhood may 
have a hundred slaves, — all field-hands, half-fed, 
worked excessively, and whipped most cruelly. 
This is what I have often seen. To give a case, 
to show the awful influence of slavery upon the 
master, I will mention a Presbyterian elder, who 
was esteemed one of the best men in the region, 
— a very kind master. I was called to his death- 
bed to write his will. He had what was con- 
sidered a favorite house-servant, a female. After 
all other tilings were disposed of, the elder paused, 
as if in doubt what to do with *' Su." I enter- 
tained pleasing expectations of hearing the word 
"liberty" fall from his lips; but who can tell 
my surprise when [ heard the master exclaim, 
" What shall be done with Su ? I am afraid she 
will never be under a master severe enough for 
her." Shall I say that both the dying elder and 
his " Su" were members of the same church, the 
latter statedly receiving the emblems of a Saviour's 
dying love from the former ! 

All this temporizing and concession has 
been excused on the plea of brotherly love. 
What a plea for us Northern freemen ! Do 
we think the slave-system such a happy, 
desirable thing for our brothers and sisters 
at the South I Can we look at our common 
schools, our neat, thriving towns and vil- 
lages, our dignified, intelligent, self-respect- 
ing fanners and mechanics, all concomitants 
of free labor, and think slavery any blessing 
to our Southern brethren I That system 
which beggars all the lower class of whites, 
which curses the very soil, which eats up 
everything before it, like the palmer-worm, 
canker and locust, — which makes common 
schools an impossibility, and the preaching 
of the gospel almost as much so. — this sys- 
tem a blessing ! Does brotherly love require 
us to help the "South preserve it? 

Consider the educational influences under 
which such children as Eva and Henrique 
must grow up there ! We are speaking of 
what many a Southern mother feels, of 
what makes many a Southern father's heart 
sore. Slavery has been spoken of in its 
influence on the family of the slave. There 
are those, who never speak, who could tell, 
if they would, its influence on the family of 
the master. It makes one's heart ache to 
see generation after generation of lovely, 
noble children exposed to such influences. 
What a country the South might be, could 
she develop herself without this curse ! If 
the Southern character, even under all these 
disadvantages, retains so much that is noble, 



and is fascinating even in its faults, what 
might it do with free institutions? 

Who is the real, who is the true and noble 
lover of the South I — they who love her 
with all these faults and incumbrances, or 
they who fix their eyes on the bright ideal 
of what she might be, and say that these 
faults are no proper part of her 7 Is it true 
love to a friend to accept the ravings of 
insanity as a true specimen of his mind 7 
Is it true love to accept the disfigurement 
of sickness as a specimen of his best con- 
dition ? Is it not truer love to say, "This 
curse is no part of our brother; it dishonors 
him; it does him injustice; it misrepresents 
him in the eyes of all nations. We love his 
better self, and we will have no fellowship 
with his betrayer. This is the part of true, 
generous, Christian love." 

But will it be said. " The abolition enter- 
prise was begun in a wrong spirit, by reck- 
less, meddling, impudent fanatics" ) Well, 
supposing that this were true, how came it 
to be so \ If the church of Christ had be- 
gun it right, these so-called fanatics would 
not have begun it wrong. In a deadly 
pestilence, if the right physicians do not 
prescribe, everybody will prescribe. — men, 
women and children, will prescribe, — be- 
cause something must be done. If the 
Presbyterian Church in 1818 had pursued 
the course the Quakers did, there never 
would have been any fanaticism. The Qua- 
kers did all by brotherly love. They melted 
the chains of Mammon only in the fires of a 
divine charity. When Christ came into 
Jerusalem, after all the mighty works that 
he had done, while air the so-called better 
classes were non-committal or opposed, the 
multitude cut down branches of palm-trees 
and cried Hosanna ! There was a most 
indecorous tumult. The very children caught 
the enthusiasm, and were crying Hosanuas in 
the temple. This was contradictory to all 
ecclesiastical rules. It was a highly im- 
proper state of things. The Chief Priests 
and Scribes said unto Jesus, " Master, 
speak unto these that they hold their peace." 
That gentle eye flashed as he answered. "I 

TELL YOU, IF THESE SHOULD HOLD THEIR 
PEACE, THE VERY STONES WOULD CRY 
OUT." 

Suppose a fire bursts out in the streets of 
Bostou, while the regular conservators of 
the city, who have the keys of the fire- 
engines, and the regulation of fire-companie3, 
are sitting together in some distant part of 
the city, consulting for the public good. 
The cry of fire reaches them, but they think 



9.00. 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S* CABIN. 



it a false alarm. The fire is no less real, for 
all that. It burns, and rages, and roars, till 
everybody in the neighborhood sees that 
something must be done. A few stout 
leaders break open the doors of the engine- 
houses, drag out the engines, and begin, 
regularly or irregularly, playing on the fire. 
But the destroyer still advances. Messen- 
gers come in hot haste to the hall of these 
deliber'ators, and, in the unselect language 
of fear and terror, revile them for not com- 
ing out. 

" Bless me!" says a decorous leader of 
the body, " what horrible language these 
men use ! " 

"They show a very bad spirit," remarks 
another: "we can't possibly join them in 
such a state of things." 

Here the more energetic members of the 
body rush out, to see if the thing be really 
so : and in a few minutes come back, if pos- 
sible more earnest than the others. 

" ! there is a fire ! — a horrible, dread- 
ful fire ! The city is burning, — men, wo- 
men, children, all burning, perishing! Come 
out. come out ! As the Lord liveth, there 
is but a step between us and death ! " 

" I am not going out; everybody that goes 
gets crazy," says one. 

"I 've noticed," says another, "that as 
soon as anybody goes out to look, he gets 
just so excited, — I won't look." 

But by this time the angry fire has burned 
into their very neighborhood. The red 
demon glares into their windows. And now, 
fairly aroused, they get up and begin to 
look out. 

" Well, there is a fire, and no mistake !" 
says one. 

" Something ought to be done," says 
another. 

" Yes," says a third ; " if it was n't for 
being mixed up with such a crowd and rab- 
ble of folks, I'd go out." 

" Upon my word," says another, " there 
are women in the ranks, carrying pails of 
water ! There, one woman is going up a 
ladder to get those children out. What an 
indecorum ! If they 'd manage this matter 
properly, we would join them." 

And now come lumbering over from 
Charlestown the engines and fire-companies. 

"What impudence of Charlestown," say 
these men, " to be sending over here. — just 
as if we could not put our own fires out ! 
They have fires over there, as much as we 
do." 

And now the flames roar and burn, and 
shake hands across the streets. They leap 



over the steeples, and glare demoniacally out 
of the church-windows. 

" For Heaven's sake, do something!" 
is the cry. "Pull down the houses ! Blow 
up those blocks of stores with gunpowder ! 
Anything to stop it." 

" See, now, what ultra, radical measures 
they are going at," says one of these spec- 
tators. 

Brave men, w r ho have rushed into the 
thickest of the fire, come out, and fall dead 
in the street. 

"They are impracticable enthusiasts. 
They have thrown their lives away in fool- 
hardiness," says another. 

So, church of Christ, burns that awful fire ! 
Evermore burning:, burning, burning, over 

O" O" O' 

church and altar ; burning over senate-house 
and forum ; burning up liberty, burning up 
religion ! No earthly hands kindled that 
fire. From its sheeted flame and wreaths 
of sulphurous smoke glares out upon thee 
the eye of that enemy who was a murderer 
from the besinnincr. It is a fire that burns 

TO THE LOWEST HELL ! 

Church of Christ, there was an hour 
when this fire might have been extinguished 
by thee. Now, thou standest like a mighty 
man astonished, — like a mighty man that 
cannot save. But the Hope of Israel is not 
dead. The Saviour thereof in time of 
trouble is yet alive. 

If every church in our land were hung 
with mourning, — if every Christian should 
put on sack-cloth. — if "the priest should 
weep between the porch and the altar," and 
say, " Spare thy people, Lord, and give 
not thy heritage to reproach ! " — that were 
not too great a mourning for such a time as 
this. 

0, church of Jesus ! consider what hath 
been said in the midst of thee. What a 
heresy hast thou tolerated in thy bosom ! 
Thy God the defender of slavery ! — thy 
God the patron of slave-law ! Thou hast 
suffered the character of thy God to be 
slandered. Thou hast suffered false witness 
against thy Redeemer and thy Sanctifier. 
The Holy Trinity of heaven has been foully 
traduced in the midst of thee ; and that God 
whose throne is awful in justice has been 
made the patron and leader of oppression. 

This is a sin against every Christian on 
the globe. 

Why do we love and adore, beyond all 
tilings, our God I Why do we say to him, 
from our inmost souls, " Whom have I in 
heaven but thee, and there is none upon 
earth I desire beside thee"'? Is this a 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



223 



bought-up worship? — is it a cringing and I by a few hours of patient shining, dissolves 
hollow subserviency, because he is great and the iceberg on which all the storms of winter 
rich and powerful, and we dare not do | have beat in vain. 0, that so happy a 
otherwise? His eyes are a flame of fire ; — ! course had been thought of and pursued by 
he reads the inmost soul, and will accept no J all the other denominations ! But the day 
such service. From our souls we adore and is past when this monstrous evil would 



love him, because he is holy and just and 
good, and will not at all acquit the wicked. 
We love him because he is the father of the 
fatherless, the judge of the widow ; — because 
he lifteth all who fall, and raiseth them that 
are bowed down. We love Jesus Christ, be- 
cause he is the Lamb without spot, the 
one altogether lovely. We love the Holy 
Comforter, because he comes to convince the 
world of sin, and of righteousness, and of 
judgment. 0, holy church universal, 
throughout all countries and nations ! 0, 
ye great cloud of witnesses, of all people 



past wtien tins monstrous evil would so 
quietly yield to gentle and persuasive meas- 
ures. 

At the time that the Quakers made their 
attempt, this Leviathan in the reeds and 
rushes of America was young and callow, 
and had not learned his strength. Then 
he might have been "drawn out with a 
hook;" then they might have "made a 
covenant with him, and taken him for a ser- 
vant forever;" but now Leviathan is full- 
grown. "Behold, the hope of him is vain. 
Shall not men be cast down even at the 
sight of him 1 None is so fierce that dare 



and languages and tongues ! — differing in J stir him up. His scales are his pride, shut 



many doctrines, but united in crying Wor 
thy is the Lamb that was slain, for he hath 
redeemed us from all iniquity ! — awake ! 
— arise up ! — be not silent ! Testify against 
this heresy of the latter day, which, if it 
were possible, is deceiving the very elect. 
Your God. your glory, is slandered. An- 
swer with the voice of many waters and 
mighty thunderings ! Answer with the in- 
numerable multitude in heaven, who cry, 
day and night, Holy, holy, holy ! just and 
true are thy ways. King of saints ! 



CHAPTER III. 

MARTYRDOM. 

At the time when the Methodist and 
Presbyterian Churches passed the anti-slav- 
ery resolutions which we have recorded, the 
system of slavery could probably have been 
extirpated by the church with comparatively 
little trouble. Such was the experience of 
the Quakers, who tried the experiment at 
that time, and succeeded. The course they 
pursued was the simplest possible. They 
districted their church, and appointed re<m- 
lar committees, whose business it was to go 
from house to house, and urge the rules of 
the church individually on each slave-holder, 
one by one. This was done in a spirit of 
such simplicity and brotherly love that very 
few resisted the appeal. They quietly 
yielded up, in obedience to their own con- 
sciences, and the influence of their brethren. 
This mode of operation, though gentle, was 
as efficient as the calm sun of summer, which, 



up together as with a close seal ; one is so 
near to another that no air can come be- 
tween them. The flakes of his flesh are 
joined together. They are firm in them- 
selves, they cannot be moved. His heart is 
as firm as a stone, yea, as hard as the nether 
mill-stone. The sword of him that layeth 
at him cannot hold. He esteemeth iron as 
straw, and brass as rotten wood. Arrows 
cannot make him flee; sling-stones are 
turned with him into stubble. He laugheth 
at the shaking of a spear. Upon the earth 
there is not his like : he is king over all the 
children of pride." 

There are those who yet retain the delu- 
sion that, somehow or other, without any 
very particular effort or opposition, by a soft, 
genteel, rather apologetic style of operation, 
Leviathan is to be converted, baptized and 
Christianized. They can try it. Such a style 
answers admirably as long as it is under- 
stood to mean nothing. But just the mo- 
ment that Leviathan finds they are in earnest, 
then they will see the consequences. The de- 
bates of all the synods in the United States, 
as to whether he is an evil per se, will not 
wake him. In fact, they are rather a pleas- 
ant humdrum. Nor will any resolutions 
that they "behold him with regret" give him 
especial concern ; neither will he be much 
annoyed by the expressed expectation that 
he is to die somewhere about the millennium. 
Notwithstanding all the recommendations of 
synods and conferences, Leviathan himself 
has but an indifferent opinion of his own 
Christianity, and an impression that he 
would not be considered quite in keeping 
with the universal reign of Christ on earth ; 
but he does n't much concern himself about 



224 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 



the prospect of giving up the ghost at so' 
very remote a period. 

But let any one, either North or South, j 
take the sword of the Spirit and make one 
pass under his scales that he shall feel, and 
then he will know what sort of a conflict 
Christian had with Apollyon. Let no one, j 
either North or South, undertake this war-! 
fare, to whom fame, or ease, or wealth, ori 
anything that this world has to give, are too | 
dear to he sacrificed. Let no one undertake : 
it who is not prepared to hate his own good , 
name, and, if need be, his life also. For this 
reason, we will give here the example of one 
martyr who died for this cause ; for it has 
been well said that "the blood of the martyr 
is the seed of the church." 

The Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy was the son 
of a Maine woman, a native of that state 
which, b;irren in all things else, is fruitful 
in noble sentiments and heroic deeds. Of 
his early days we say nothing. Probably 
they were like those of other Maine boys. 
We take up his history where we find him a 
clergyman in St. Louis, Mo., editing a re- 
ligious newspaper. Though professing not 
to be a technical abolitionist, he took an open 
and decided stand against slavery. This 
aroused great indignation, and called forth 
threats of violence. Soon after, a mob, 
composed of the most respectable individuals 
of the place, burned alive a negro-man in the 
Streets of St. Louis, for stabbing the officers 
who came to arrest him. This scene of pro- 
tracted torture lasted till the deed was com- 
pleted, and the shrieks of the victim for a 
more merciful death were disregarded. In 
his charge to the grand jury, Judge Lawless 
decided that no legal redress could be had 
for this outrage, because, being the act of an 

ill 

infuriated multitude, it was above the law. 
Elijah Lovejoy expressed, in determined 
language, his horror of the transaction and 
of the decision. For these causes, his office 
was torn dawn and destroyed by the mob. 
Happening to be in St. Charles, a mob of 
such men as only slavery could raise at- 
tacked the house to take his life. His 
distracted wife kept guard at his door, 
Struggling with men armed with bludgeons 
and bowie'-knives, who swore that they 
would have his heart's blood. A woman's 
last despair, and the aid of friends, repelled 
the first assault; but when the mo!) again 
returned, lie made his escape. Lovejoy came 
to Alton. Illinois, and there set Up Ins paper. 
The mob followed him. His press was twice 



destroyed, and he was daily threatened with 
assassination. 

Before his press was destroyed the third 
time, a call was issued in his paper for a 
convention of the enemies of slavery and 
friends of free inquiry in Illinois, for the pur- 
pose of considering and recommending meas- 
ures adapted to meet the existing crisis. 
This call was signed by about two hundred 
and fifty persons from different parts of the 
state, among whom was the Rev. E Beecher, 
then President of Illinois College. This 
gathering brought together a large number. 
When they met for discussion, the uaobocrats 
came also among them, and there was a great 
ferment. The mob finally out-voted and 
dissolved the convention. It was then 
resolved to form an anti-slavery society, 
and to issue a declaration of sentiments, 
and an address to the people of the state. 
Threats were expressed that, if Mr. Love- 
joy continued to print his paper, the mob 
would destroy his expected press. In this 
state of excitement, Mr. Beecher, at the re- 
quest of the society, preached two sermons, 
setting forth the views and course of conduct 
which were contemplated in the proposed 
movement. They were subsequently set 
forth in a published document, an extract 
from which will give the reader an idea of 
what they were : 



1. We shall endeavor to induce all our fellow- 
citizens to elevate their minds above all selfish, 
pecuniary, political, and local interests ; and, from 
a deep sense of the presence of God, ti> regard 
solely the eternal and immutable principles of 
truth, which no human legislature or popular sen- 
timent can alter or remove. 

2. We shall endeavor to present the question 
as one hetween this community and God, — a sub- 
ject on which He deeply feels, and on which we 
owe great and important duties to Him and to our 
fellow-citizens. 

3. We shall endeavor, as far as possible, to 
allay the violence of party strife, to ran tve all 
unholy excitement, and to produce mutual confi- 
dence and kindness, and a deep interest in the 
welfare of all parts of our nation ; and a strong 
desire to preserve its union and promote its high- 
est welfare. 

Our entire reliance is upon truth and love, iind 
the influences of the Holy Spirit. We desire to 
compel no one to act against his judgment or con- 
science by an oppressive power of public senti- 
ment; hut to arouse all men to candid thought, 
and impartial inquiry in the fear of God. we do 
desire. 

And, to accomplish this end, we shall use tho 
same means that are used to enlighten and elevate 
the public mind on all Other great moral subjects, 
— personal influence, public address, the pulpit 
aud the press. 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 



225 



4. "Wo shall endeavor to produce a new and 
radical investigation of the principles of human 
rights, and of the relations of all just legislation 
to them, deriving our principles from the nature 
of the human mind, the relations of man to God, 
and the revealed will of the Creator. 

5. We shall then endeavor to examine the slave- 
laws of our land in the light of these principles, 
and to prove that they are essentially sinful, and 
that they are at war alike with the will of God 
and all the interests of the master, the slave, and 
the community at large. 

G. "We shall then endeavor to show in what 
manner communities where such laws exist may 
relieve themselves at once, in perfect safety and 
peace, both of the guilt and dangers of the sys- 
tem. 

7. And, until communities can be aroused to do 
their duties, we shall endeavor to illustrate and 
enforce the duties of individual slave-holders in 
such communities. 

To views presented in this spirit and 
manner one would think there could have 
been no rational objection. The only diffi- 
culty with them was, that, though calm and 
kind, they were felt to be in earnest ; and 
at once Leviathan was wide awake. 

The next practical question was, Shall the 
third printing-press be defended, or shall it 
also be destroyed? 

There was a tremendous excitement, and a 
great popular tumult. The timid, prudent, 
peace-loving majority, who are to be found in 
every city, who care not what principles 
prevail, so they promote their own interest, 
were wavering and pusillanimous, and thus 
encouraged the mob. Every motive was 
urged to induce Mr. Beecher and Mr. Love- 
joy to forego the attempt to reestablish the 
press. The former was told that a price had 
been set on his head in Missouri, — a fashion- 
able mode of meeting argument in the pro- 
slavery parts of this country. Mr. Lovejoy 
had been so long threatened with assassina- 
tion, day and night, that the argument with 
him was something musty. Mr. Beecher was 
also told that the interests of the college of 
which he was president would be sacrificed, 
and that, if he chose to risk his own safety, 
he had no right to risk those interests. But 
Mr. Beecher and Mr. Lovejoy both felt that 
the very foundation principle of free insti- 
tutions had at this time been seriously com- 
promised, all over the country, by yielding 
up the right of free discussion at the clamors 
of the mob ; that it was a precedent of very 
wide and very dangerous application. 

In a public meeting, Mr. Beecher ad- 
dressed the citizens on the right of main- 
taining free inquiry, and of supporting 
every man in the right of publishing and 
speaking his conscientious opinions. He 
15 



read to them some of those eloquent pas- 
sages in which Dr. Channing had maintained 
the same rights in very similar circumstances 
in Boston. He read to them extracts from 
foreign papers, which showed how the 
American character suffered in foreign lands 
from the prevalence in America of Lynch 
law and mob violence. He defended the 
right of Mr. Lovejoy to print and publish 
his conscientious opinions ; and. finally, he 
read from some Southern journals extracts 
in which they had strongly condemned the 
course of the mob, and vindicated Mr. 
Lovejoy's right to express his opinions. He 
then proposed to them that they should pass 
resolutions to the following effect : 

That the free communication of opinion is one of 
the invaluable rights of man ; and that every citizen 
may freely speak, write or print, on any subject, 
being responsible for the abuse of the liberty. 

That maintenance of these {principles should be 
independent of all regard to persons and senti- 
ments. 

That they should be especially maintained with 
regard to unpopular sentiments, since no others 
need the protection of law. 

That on these grounds alone, and without re- 
gard to political and moral differences, we agree 
to protect the press and property of the editor of 
the Alton Observer, and support him in his right 
to publish whatever he pleases, holding him re- 
sponsible only to the laws of the land. 

These resolutions, so proposed, were to be 
taken into consideration at a final meeting 
of the citizens, which was to be held the 
next day. 

That meeting was held. Their first step 
was to deprive Mr. Beecher, and all who 
were not citizens of that county, of the right 
of debating on the report to be presented. 
The committee then reported that they deeply 
regretted the excited state of feeling; that 
they cherished strong confidence that the 
citizens would refrain from undue excite- 
ments ; that the exigences of the time re- 
quired a course of moderation and compro- 
mise; and that, while there was no disposition 
to prevent free discussion in general, they 
deemed it indispensable to the public tran- 
quillity that Mr. Lovejoy should not publish 
a paper in that city ; not wishing to reflect 
in the slightest degree upon Mr. Lovejoy's 
character and motives. All that the meet- 
ing waited for now was, to hear whether Mr. 
Lovejoy would comply with their recom- 
mendation. 

One of the committee arose, and expressed 
his sympathy for Mr. Lovejoy, characterizing 
him as an unfortunate individual, hoping that 
they would all consider that he had a wife 



226 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CAKItf. 



and family to support, and trusting that they 
would disgrace him as little as possible ; but 
that he and all his party would see the ne- 
cessity of making a compromise, and depart- 
ing from Alton. What followed is related 
in the words of Mr. Beecher, who was pres- 
ent at the meeting : 



As Brother Lovejoy rose to reply to the speech 
above mentioned, I watched his countenance with 
deep interest, not to say anxiety. I saw no tokens 
of disturbance. With a tranquil, self-possessed 
air, he went up to the bar within which the chair- 
man sat, and, in a tone of deep, tender and sub- 
dued feeling, spoke as follows : 

"I feel, Mr. Chairman, that this is the most 
solemn moment of my life. I feel, I trust, in some 
measure the responsibilities which at this hour I 
sustain to these, my fellow-citizens, to the church 
of which I am a minister, to my country, and to 
God. And let me beg of you, before I proceed fur- 
ther, to construe nothing I shall say as being disre- 
spectful to this assembly. I have no such feeling : 
far from it. And if I do not act or speak accord- 
ing to their wishes at all times, it is because I 
cannot conscientiously do it. 

" It is proper I should state the whole matter, as 
I understand it, before this audience. I do not 
stand here to argue the question as presented by 
the report of the committee. My only wonder is 
that the honorable-gentleman the chairman of that 
committee, for whose character I entertain great 
trespect, though I have not the pleasure of his per- 
gonal acquaintance, — my only wonder is how that 
•gentleman could have brought himself to submit 
■such a report. 

'' Mr. Chairman, I do not admit that it is the 
business of this- assembly to decide whether I 
shall or shall not publish a newspaper in this 
city. The gentlemen have, as the lawyers say, 
made a wrong issue. I have the right to, do it. 1 
know that I have the right freely to speak and pub- 
lish my sentiments, subject only to the laws of the 
land for the abuse of that right. This right was 
given me by my Maker ; and is solemnly guaranteed 
to me by the constitution of these United States, 
and df this state. What I wish to know of you 
is, whether you will protect me in the exercise 
of this right ; or whether, as heretofore, I am to 
be subjected to personal indignity and outrage. 
These resolutions, and the measures proposed by 
them, are spoken of as a compromise — a compro- 
mise between two parties. Mr. Chairman, this is 
not BO. There is but one party here. It is simply 
a question whether the law shall be enforced, or 
whether the mob shall be allowed, as they now 
do, to continue to trample it under their feet, by 
violating with impunity the rights of an innocent 
individual. 

" Mr. Chairman, what have I to compromise? 
If freely to forgive those who have so greatly in- 
jured me, if to pray for their temporal and eternal 
happiness, if still to wish for the prosperity of 
your city and state, notwithstanding all the indig- 
nities 1 have Buffered in it, — if this he the compro- 
mise intended, then do I willingly make it. My 
rights have been shamefully, wickedly outraged ; 
this 1 know, and feel, and can never forget. Hut 
I can and do freely forgive those who have done it. 

" Bat if by a compromise is meant that I should 
cease from doing that which duty requires of me, 



I cannot make it. And the reason is, that I fear 
God more than I fear man. Think not that I 
would lightly go contrary to public sentiment 
around me. The good opinion of my fellow-men 
is dear to me, and I would sacrifice anything but 
principle to obtain their good wishes ; but when 
they ask me to surrender this, they ask for more 
than I can, than I dare give. Reference is made 
to the fact that I offered a few days since to 
give up the editorship of the Observer into other 
hands. This is true ; I did so because it was 
thought or said by some that perhaps the paper 
would be better patronized in other hands. They 
declined accepting my offer, however, and since 
then we have heard from the friends and support- 
ers of the paper in all parts of the state. There 
was but one sentiment among them, and this 
was that the paper could be sustained in no other 
hands than mine. It is also a very different ques- 
tion, whether I shall voluntarily, or at the request 
of friends, yield up my post ; or whether I shall 
forsake it at the demand of a mob. The former I 
am at all times ready to do, when circumstances 
occur to require it ; as I will never put my personal 
wishes or interests in competition with the cause 
of that Master whose minister I am. But the latter, 
be assured, I never will do. God, in his providence, 
— so say all my brethren, and so I think, — has de- 
volved upon me the responsibility of maintaining 
my ground here ; and, Mr. Chairman, I am deter- 
mined to doit. A voice comes to me from Maine, 
from Massachusetts, from Connecticut, from New- 
York, from Pennsylvania, — yea, from Kentucky, 
from Mississippi , from Missouri, — calling upon me, 
in the name of all that is dear in heaven or earth, 
to stand fast ; and, by the help of God, I wili. 
stand. I know I am but one, and you are many. 
My strength would avail but little against you all. 
You can crush me, if you will ; but I shall die at 
my post, for I cannot and will not forsake it. 

" Why should I flee from Alton ? Is not this a 
free state ? When assailed by a mob at St. Louis, 
I came hither, as to the home of freedom and of 
the laws. The mob has pursued me here, and 
why should I retreat again ? Where can I be safe, 
if not here ? Have not I a right to claim the pro- 
tection of the laws'! What more caul have in any 
other place! Sir, the very act of retreating wiil 
embolden the mob to follow me wherever I go. No, 
sir, there is no way to escape the mob, but to 
abandon the path of duty ; and that, God helping 
me, I will never do. 

" It has been said here, that my hand is against 
every man, and every man's hand against me. The 
last part of the declaration is too painfully true. 
I do indeed find almost every hand lifted against 
me; but against whom in this place has my hand 
been raised ? I appeal to every individual present ; 
whom of you have I injured ? Whose character 
have I traduced? Whose family have 1 molested' 
Whose business have I meddled with ? If any, 
let him rise here and testily against me. — No one 
answers. 

" And do not your resolutions say that you find 
nothing against my private or personal character? 
And does any one believe that, if there was any- 
thing to be found, it would not be found and 
brought forth? If in anything I have offended 
against the law, I am not so popular in this com- 
munity as that it would be difficult to convict me. 
You have courts and judges and juries ; they find 
nothing against me. And now you come together 
for the purpose of driving out a confessedly inno- 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



227 



cent man, for no cause but that he dares to think 
and speak as his conscience and his God dictate. 
Will conduct like this stand the scrutiny of your 
countrj*, of posterity; above all, of the judgment- 
day! For remember, the Judge of that day is no 
respecter of persons. Pause, I beseech you, and 
reflect ! The present excitement will soon be over ; 
the voice of conscience will at last be heard. And 
in some season of honest thought, even in this 
world, as you review the scenes of this hour, you 
will be compelled to say, 'He was right; he was 
right.' 

" But you have been exhorted to be lenient and 
compassionate, and in driving me away to affix 
no unnecessary disgrace upon me. Sir, I reject all 
such compassion. You cannot disgrace me. Scan- 
dal and falsehood and calumny have already done 
their worst. My shoulders have borne the burthen 
till it sits easy upon them. You may hang ineup, 
as the mob hung up the individuals of Vicksburg! 
You may barn me at the stake, as they did Mcin- 
tosh at St. Louis ; or you may tar and feather me, 
or throw me into the Mississippi, as you have often 
threatened to do ; but you cannot disgrace me. I, 
and I alone, can disgrace myself ; and the deepest 
of all disgrace would be, at a time like this, to 
deny my Master by forsaking his cause. He died 
for me ; and I were most unworthy to bear his 
name, should I refuse, if need be, to die for him. 

" Again, you have been told thai I have a fam- 
ily, who are dependent on me ; and this has been 
given as a reason why I should be driven off as 
gently as possible, ft is true, Mr. Chairman, I 
am a husband and a father ; and this it is that 
adds the bitterest ingredient to the cup of sorrow 
I am called to drink. I am made to feel the wis- 
dom of the apostle's advice; 'It is better not to 
marry.' I know, sir, that in this contest I stake 
not my life only, but that of others also. I do not 
expect my wife will ever recover the shock received 
at the awful scenes through which she was called 
to pass at St. Charles. And how was it the other 
night, on my return to my house ? I found her 
driven to the garret, through fear of the mob, who 
were prowling round my house. And scarcely had 
I entered the house ere my windows were broken 
in by the brickbats of the mob, and she so alarmed 
that it was impossible for her to sleep or rest 
that night. I am hunted as a partridge upon the 
mountains ; I am pursued as a felon through your 
streets ; and to the guardian power of the law I 
look in vain for that protection against violence 
which even the vilest criminal may claim. 

" Yet think not that I am unhappy. Think not 
that I regret the choice that I have made. While 
all around me is violence and tumult, all is peace 
within. An approving conscience, and the re- 
warding smile of God, is a full recompense for all 
that I forego and all that I endure. Yes, sir, I 
enjoy a peace which nothing can destroy. I sleep 
sweetly and undisturbed, except when awaked by 
the brickbats of the mob. 

" No, sir, I am not unhappy. I have counted 
the cost, and stand prepared freely to offer up my 
all in the service of God. Yes, sir, I am fully 
aware of all the sacrifice I make, in here pledging 
myself to continue tnis contest to the last. — (For- 
give these tears — I had not intended to shed 
them, and they flow not for myself but others.) 
But I am commanded to forsake father and mother 
and wife and children for Jesus' sake ; and as his 
professed disciple I stand prepared to do it. The 
time for fulfilling this pledge in my case, it seems 



to me, has come. Sir, T dare not flee away from 
Alton. Should I attempt it, I should feel that 
the angel of the Lord, with his flaming sw >rd,was 
pursuing me wherever I went. It is because I 
fear God that I am not afraid of all who oppose 
me in this city. No, sir, the contest has com- 
menced here ; and here it must be finished. Be- 
fore God and you all, I here pledge myself to con- 
tinue it, if need be, till death. If I fall, my grave 
shall be made in Alton." 

In person Lovejoy was well formed, in voice 
and manners refined ; and the pathos of this 
last appeal, uttered in entire simplicity, 
melted every one present, and produced a 
deep silence. It was one of those moments 
when the feelings of an audience tremble in 
the balance, and a grain may incline tjiem to 
cither side. A proposition to support him 
might have carried, had it been made at that 
moment. The charm was broken by another 
minister of the gospel, who rose and deliv- 
ered a homily on the necessity of compro- 
mise, recommending to Mr. Lovejoy especial 
attention to the example of Paul, who was 
let down in a basket from a window in 
Damascus : as if Alton had been a heathen 
city under a despotic government ! The 
charm once broken, the meeting became 
tumultuous and excited, and all manner of 
denunciations were rained down upon abo- 
litionists. The meeting passed the resolu- 
tions reported by the committee, and refused 
to resolve to aid in sustaining the law against 
illegal violence ; and the mob perfectly un- 
derstood that, do what they might, they 
should have no disturbance. It being now 
understood that Mr. Lovejoy would not re- 
treat, it was supposed that the crisis of the' 
matter would develop itself when his print- 
ing-press came on shore. 

During the following three days there 
seemed to be something of a reaction. One 
of the most influential of the mob-leaders 
was heard to say that it was of no use to 
go on destroying presses, as there was money 
enough on East to bring new ones, and that 
they might as well let the fanatics alone. 

This somewhat encouraged the irresolute 
city authorities, and the friends of the press 
thought, if they could get it once landed, and 
safe into the store of Messrs. Godfrey & Gil- 
man, that the crisis would be safely passed. 
They therefore sent an express to the captain 
to delay the landing of the boat till three 
o'clock in the morning, and the leaders of 
the mob, after watching till they were tired, 
went home ; the press was safely landed and 
deposited, and all supposed that the trouble 
was safely passed. Under this impression 
Mr. Beecher left Alton, and returned home. 



228 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



We will give a few extracts from Mr. 
Beecher's narrative, which describe his last 
interview with Mr. Lovejoy on that night. 
after they had landed and secured the press : 

Shortly after the hour fixed on for the landing 
of the boat, Mr. Lovejoy arose, and called me to go 
with him to see what was the result. The moon 
had set and it was still dark, but day was near ; 
and here and there a light was glimmering from 
the window of some sick room, or of some early 
riser. The streets were empty and silent, and the 
sounds of our feet echoed from the walls as we 
passed along. Little did he dream, at that hour, 
of the contest which the next night would witness ; 
that these same streets would echo with the 
shouts of an infuriate mob, and be stained with 
his own heart's blood. 

We found the boat there, and the press in the 
warehouse ; aided in raising it to the third story. 
We were all rejoiced that no conflict had ensued, 
and that the press was safe ; and all felt that the 
crisis was over. We were sure that the store 
could not be carried by storm by so few men as 
had ever yet acted in a mob ; and though the ma- 
jority of the citizens would not aid to defend the 
press, we had no fear that they would aid in an 
attack. So deep was this feeling that it was 
thought that a small number was sufficient to 
guard the press afterward ; and it was agreed 
that the company should be divided into sections 
of six, and take turns on successive nights. As 
they had been up all night, Mr. Lovejoy and my- 
self offered to take charge of the press till morn- 
ing ; and they retired. 

The morning soon began to dawn ; and that 
morning I shall never forget. Who that has stood 
on the banks of the mighty stream that then rolled 
before me can forget the emotions of sublimity that 
filled his heart, as in imagination he has traced 
those channels of intercourse opened by it and its 
branches through the illimitable regions of this 
western world? I thought of future ages, and of 
the countless millions that should dwell on this 
mighty stream ; and that nothing but the truth 
would make them free. Never did I feel as then 
the value of the right for which we were con- 
tending thoroughly to investigate and fearlessly 
to proclaim that truth. O, the sublimity of 
moral power ! By it God sways the universe. By 
it he will make the nations free. 

I passed through the scuttle to the roof, and as- 
cended to the highest point of the wall. The sky 



and the river were beginning to glow with ap- 
proaching day, and the busy hum of business 
to be heard. I looked with exultation on the 
sc-cnos below. I felt that a bloodless battle had 
been gained for God and for the truth ; and that 
Alton was redeemed from eternal shame. And as all 
around grew brighter with approaching day, I 
thought of that still brighter sun, even now dawn- 
ing on the world, and soon to bathe it with floods 
i.if glorious light. 

Brother Lovejoy, too, was happy. He did not 
exult ; he was tranquil and composed, but his 
countenance indicated the state of his mind. It was 
a calm and tranquil joy, for ho trusted in God that 
the point was gained ; that the banner of an un- 
fettered press would soon wave over that mighty 
stream. 

Vain hopes ! How soon to bo buried in a 
inartyr'a grave ! Vain, did I say? No : they are 



not vain. Though dead he still speaketh ; and 
a united world can never silence his voice. 

The conclusion of the tragedy is briefly 
told. A volunteer company, of whom Love- 
joy was one, was formed to act under the 
mayor in defence of the law. The next night 
the mob assailed the building at ten o'clock. 
The store consisted of two stone buildings in 
one block, with doors and windows at each 
end, but no windows at the sides. The roof 
was of wood. Mr. Gilman, opening the end 
door of the third story, asked what they 
wanted. They demanded the press. He re- 
fused to give it up, and earnestly entreated 
them to go away without violence, assuring 
them that, as the property had been com- 
mitted to their charge, they should defend it 
at the risk of their lives. After some in- 
effectual attempts, the mob shouted to set 
fire to the roof. Mr. Lovejoy, with some 
others, went out to defend it from this attack, 
and was shot down by the deliberate aim of 
one of the mob. After this wound he had 
barely strength to return to the store, went 
up one flight of stairs, fell and expired. 

Those within then attempted to capitulate, 
but were refused with curses by the mob, who 
threatened to burn the store, and shoot them 
as they came out. At kngth the building 
was actually on fire, and tney fled out, fired 
on as they went by the mob. So terminated 
the Alton tragedy. 

When the noble mother of Lovejoy heard 
of his death, she said, "It is well. I had 
rather he would die so than forsake his prin- 
ciples." All is not over with America while 
such mothers are yet left. Was she not 
blessed who could give up such a son in 
such a spirit? Who was that woman whom 
God pronounced blessed above all women ? 
Was it not she who saw her dearest cruci- 
fied? So differently does God see from 
what man sees. 



CHAPTER IV 



SERVITUDE IN THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH 
COMPARED WITH AMERICAN SLAVERY. 

"Look now upon this picture ! and on this." 

Hamlkt. 

It is the standing claim of those professors 
of religion at the South who support slavery 
that they arc pursuing the same course in 
relation to it that Christ and his apostles did. 
Let us consider the course of Christ and his 
apostles, and the nature of the kingdom 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



229 



-which they founded, and see if this be the 
fact. 

Napoleon said, '-'Alexander, Cresar, Charle- 
magne and myself, have founded empires ; 
but upon what did we rest the creation of 
our genius'? Upon force. Jesus Christ 
alone founded his empire upon LOVE." 

The desire to be above others in power, 
rank and station, is one of the deepest in 
human nature. If there is anything which 
distinguishes man from other creatures, it is 
that he is par excellence an oppressive 
animal. On this principle, as Napoleon 
observed, all empires have been founded; 
and the idea of founding a kingdom in any 
other way had not even been thought of 
when Jesus of Nazareth appeared. 

When the serene Galilean came up from 
the waters of Jordan, crowned and glorified 
by the descending Spirit, and began to preach, 
saying, " The kingdom of God is at hand," 
what expectations did he excite? Men's 
heads were full of armies to be marshalled, 
of provinces to be conquered, of cabinets to 
be formed, and offices to be distributed. 
There was no doubt at all that he could get 
all these things for them, for had he not 
miraculous power? 

Therefore it was that Jesus of Nazareth 
was very popular, and drew crowds after 
him. 

Of these, he chose, from the very lowest 
walk of life, twelve men of the best and most 
honest heart which he could find, that he 
might make them his inseparable companions, 
and mould them, by his sympathy and friend- 
ship, into some capacity to receive and trans- 
mit his ideas to mankind. 

But they too, simple-hearted and honest 
though they were, were bewildered and be- 
witched by the common vice of mankind ; and, 
though they loved him full well, still had an 
eye on the offices and ranks which he was to 
confer, when, as they expected, this miracu- 
lous kingdom should blaze forth. 

While his heart was struggling and labor- 
ing, and nerving itself by nights of prayer 
to meet desertion, betrayal, denial, rejection, 
by his beloved people, and ignominious death, 
they were forever wrangling about the offices 
in the new kingdom. Once and again, in 
the plainest way, he told them that no such 
thing was to be looked for ; that there was to 
be no distinction in his kingdom, except the 
distinction of pain, and suffering, and self- 
renunciation, voluntarily assumed for the 
good of mankind. 

His words seemed to them as idle tales. 
In fact, they considered him as a kind of a 



myth, — a mystery, — a strange, supernatu- 
ral, inexplicable being, forever talking in 
parables, and saying things which they could 
not understand. 

One thing only they held fast to : he was 
a king, he would have a kingdom ; and he 
had told them that they should sit on twelve 
thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 
And so, when he was going up to Jerusa- 
lem to die, — when that anguish long wres- 
tled with in the distance had come almost 
face to face, and he was walking in front of 
them, silent, abstracted, speaking occasionally 
in broken sentences, of which they feared to 
ask the meaning, — they, behind, beguiled the 
time with the usual dispute of "who should 
be greatest." 

The mother of James and John came to 
him, and, breaking the mournful train of 
revery, desired a certain thing of him, — 
that her two sons might sit at his right hand 
and his left, as prime ministers, in the new 
kingdom. With his sad, far-seeing eye still 
fixed upon Gethsemane and Calvary, he said, 
"Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able 
to drink of the cup which I shall drink of, 
and to be baptized with the baptism where- 
with I shall be baptized?" 

James and John were both quite certain 
that they were able. They were willing to 
fight through anything for the kingdom's 
sake. The ten were very indignant. Were 
they not as willing as James and John ? 
And so there was a contention among them. 
" But Jesus called them to him and said, 
Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles 
exercise dominion over them, and their great 
ones exercise authority upon them ; but it 
shall not be so among you. 

" Whosoever will be great among you, let 
him be your minister; and whosoever will be 
chief among you, let him be your servant, — 
yea, the servant of all. For even the Son 
of Man came not to be ministered unto, but 
to minister, and to give his life a ransom for 
many. ; ' 

Let us now pass on to another week in 
this history. The disciples have seen their 
Lord enter triumphantly into Jerusalem, 
amid the shouts of the multitude. An in- 
describable something in his air and manner 
convinces them that a great crisis is at hand. 
He walks among men as a descended God. 
Never were his words so thrilling and ener- 
getic. Never were words spoken on earth 
which so breathe and burn as these of the 
last week of the life of Christ. All the 
fervor and imagery and fire of the old proph- 
ets seemed to be raised from the dead, 



230 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



ethereal! zed ami transfigured in the person of 
this Jesus. They dare not ask him, but 
they :ire certain that the kingdom must be 
coming. They feel, in the thrill of that 
mighty soul, that a great cycle of time is 
finishing, and a new era in the world's 
history beginning. Perhaps at this very 
feast of the Passover is the time when the 
miraculous banner is to be unfurled, and the 
new, immortal kingdom proclaimed. Again 
the ambitious longings arise. This new 
kingdom shall have ranks and dignities. And 
who is to sustain them? While therefore 
their Lord sits lost in thought, revolving in 
his mind that simple ordinance of love 
which he is about to constitute the sealing 
ordinance of his kingdom, it is said again, 
" There was a strife among them which 
should be accounted the greatest." 

This time Jesus does not remonstrate. 
He expresses no impatience, no weariness, 
no disgust. What does he, then? Hear 
what St. John says : 

"Jesus knowing that the Father had 
given all things into his hands, and that 
he was come from God and went to God, he 
riseth from supper, and laid aside his gar- 
ments, and took a towel and girded himself. 
After that, he poureth water into a basin, 
and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to 
wipe them with the towel wherewith he was 
girded." " After he had washed their feet 
and had taken his garments and was sat 
down again, he said unto them, Know ye 
what I have done to you? Ye call me Mas- 
ter and Lord : and ye say well, for so I am. 
If I, then, your Lord and Master, have 
washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one 
another's feet ; for I have given you an exam- 
ple that ye should do as I have done to you." 
"Verily, verily I say unto you, the ser- 
vant is not greater than his lord, neither he 
that is sent greater than he that sent him. 
If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye 
do them." 

Here, then, we have the king, and the 
constitution of the kingdom. The king on 
his knees at the feet of' his servants, per- 
forming the lowest menial service, with the 
announcement, "I have given you an ex- 
ample, that ye should do as I have done to 
you. ' ' 

And when, after the descent of the Holy 
Ghost, all these immortal words of Christ, 
which had lain buried like dead seed in the 
heart, were quickened and sprang up in ce- 
lestial verdure, then these twelve became, 
each one in his place, another Jesus, filled 
with the spirit of him who had gone heaven- 



ward. The primitive church, as organized 
by them, was a brotherhood of strict equality. 
There was no more contention who should 
be greatest ; the only contention was, who 
should suffer and serve the most. The 
Christian church was an imperium In im- 
perio ; submitting outwardly to the laws of 
the land, but professing inwardly to be regu- 
lated by a higher faith and a higher law. 
They were dead to the world, and the world 
to them. Its customs were not their cus- 
toms ; its relations not their relations. All 
the ordinary relations of life, when they 
passed into the Christian church, underwent 
a quick, immortal change ; so that the trans- 
formed relation resembled the old and heathen 
one no more than the glorious body which is 
raised in incorruption resembles the mortal 
one which was sown in corruption. The 
relation of marriage was changed, from a 
tyrannous dominion of the stronger sex over 
the weaker, to an intimate union, symbolizing 
the relation of Christ and the church. The 
relation of parent and child, purified from 
the harsh features of heathen law, became a 
just image of the love of the heavenly 
Father; and the relation of master and 
servant, in like manner, was refined into a 
voluntary relation between two equal breth- 
ren, in which the servant faithfully performed 
his duties as to the Lord, and the master gave 
him a full compensation for his services. 

No one ever doubted that such a relation 
as this is an innocent one. It exists in all 
free states. It is the relation which exists 
between employer and employed generally, 
in the various departments of life. It is 
true, the master was never called upon to 
perform the legal act of enfranchisement, 
— and why ? Because the very nature of the 
kingdom into which the master and slave 
had entered enfranchised him. It is not 
necessary for a master to write a deed of en- 
franchisement when he takes his slaves into 
Canada, or even into New York or Pennsyl- 
vania. The moment the master and slave 
stand together on this soil, their whole rela- 
tions to each other are changed. The mas- 
ter may remain master, and the servant a 
servant; but, according to the constitution 
of the state they have entered, the service 
must be a voluntary one on the part of the 
slave, and the master must render a just 
equivalent. When the water of baptism 
passed over the master and the slave, both 
alike came under the great constitutional 
law of Christ's empire, which is this : 

" Whosoever will be great among you, let 
him be your minister ; and whosoever will be 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



231 



chief among you, let him be your servant, 
yea, the servant of all." Under such a law, 
servitude was dignified and made honorable, 
but slavery was made an impossibility. 

That the church was essentially, and in its 
own nature, such an institution of equality, 
brotherhood, love and liberty, as made the 
existence of a slave, in the character of a 
slave, in it, a contradiction and an impossi- 
bility, is evident from the general scope and 
tendency of all the apostolic writings, par- 
ticularly those of Paul. 

And this view is obtained, not from a dry 
analysis of Greek words, and dismal discus- 
sions about the meaning of doulos, but from 
a full tide of celestial, irresistible spirit, full 
of life and love, that breathes in every de- 
scription of the Christian church. 

To all, whether bond or free, the apostle 
addresses these inspiring words : " There is 
one body, and one spirit, even as ye are 
called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, 
one faith, one baptism, one God and Father 
of all, who is above all, and through all, 
and in you all. 7 ' "For through him we all 
have access, by one Spirit, unto the Father." 
" Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers 
and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the 
saints, and of the household of God, and are 
built upon the foundation of the apostles and 
prophets, Jesus Christ, himself, being the 
chief corner-stone." "Ye are all the chil- 
dren of God, by faith in Jesus Christ ; there 
is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither 
bond nor free, there is neither male nor fe- 
male, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." 

" For, as the body is one, and hath many 
members, and all the members of that one 
body, being many, are one body, so also is 
Christ ; for by one Spirit are we all baptized 
into one body, whether we be Jews or Gen- 
tiles, whether we be bond or free; and wheth- 
er one member suffer, all the members suffer 
with it, or one member be honored, all the 
members rejoice with it." 

It was the theory of this blessed and 
divine unity, that whatever gift, or superi- 
ority, or advantage, was possessed by one 
member, was possessed by every member. 
Thus Paul says to them, (< All things are 
yours ; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, 
or life, or death, all are yours, and ye are 
Christ's, and Christ is God's." 

Having thus represented the church as 
one living body, inseparably united, the 
apostle uses a still more awful and im- 
pressive simile. The church, he says, is 
one body, and that body is the fulness of 
Him who filleth all in all. That is, He 



who filleth all in all seeks this church to 
be the associate and complement of him- 
self, even as a wife is of the husband. This 
body of believers is spoken of as a bright 
and mystical bride, in the world, but not of 
it; spotless, divine, immortal, raised from the 
death of sin to newness of life, redeemed by 
the blood of her Lord, and to be presented 
at last unto him, a glorious church, not 
having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing. 

A delicate and mysterious sympathy is 
supposed to pervade this church, like that 
delicate and mysterious tracery of nerves 
that overspreads the human body; the mean- 
est member cannot suffer without the whole 
body quivering in pain. Thus says Paul, 
who was himself a perfect realization of this 
beautiful theory : " Who is weak, and I am 
not weak ? Who is offended, and I burn 
not?" " To whom ye forgive anything, I 
forgive also." 

But still further, individual Christians 
were reminded, in language of awful solem- 
nity, "What! know ye not that your body 
is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is 
in you, which ye have of God, and that ye 
are not your own?" And again, "Ye are 
the temple of the living God; as God hath 
said, I will dwell in them and walk in them." 
Nor was this sublime language in those days 
passed over as a mere idle piece of rhetoric, 
but was the ever-present consciousness of the 
soul. 

Every Christian was made an object of 
sacred veneration to his brethren, as the 
temple of the living God. The soul of 
every Christian was hushed into awful still- 
ness, and inspired to carefulness, watchful- 
ness and sanctity, by the consciousness of an 
indwelling God. Thus Ignatius, who for 
his preeminent piety was called, pa?' excel- 
lence, by his church, "Theophorus, the God- 
bearer," when summoned before the Emperor 
Trajan, used the following remarkable lan- 
guage: "No one can call Theophorus an evil 
spirit * ** * for, bearing in my heart Christ 
the king of heaven, I bring to nothing the 
arts and devices of the evil spirits." 

"Who, then, is 'the God-bearer ' 7 " asked 
Trajan. 

" He who carries Christ in his heart," 
was the reply. * * * * 

" Dost thou mean him whom Pontius Pi- 
late crucified?" 

"He is the one I mean," replied Ignatius. 

t£ *tt? -Jv^ 

"Dost thou then bear the crucified one in 
thy heart?" asked Trajan. 

"Even so," said Ignatius; "for it is 



232 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



•written, 'I will dwell in them and rest in 
them.'" 

So perfect was the identification of Christ 
with the individual Christian in the primitive 
church, that it was a familiar form of ex- 
pression to speak of an injury done to the 
meanest Christian as an injury done to Christ. 
So St. Paul says, " When ye sin so against 
the weak brethren, and wound their weak 
consciences, ye sin against Christ." He 
says of himself, " I live, yet not I, but 
Christ liveth in me." 

See, also, the following extracts from a 
letter by Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, to 
some poor Numidian churches, who had ap- 
plied to him to redeem some of their mem- 
bers from slavery among bordering savage 
tribes. (Neander Denkw. I. 340.) 

We could view the captivity of our brethren no 
otherwise than as our own, since we belong to one 
body, and not only love, but religion, excites us to 
redeem in our brethren the members of our own 
body. We must, even if affection were not suf- 
ficient to induce us to keep our brethren, — we 
must reflect that the temples of God are in cap- 
tivity, and these temples of God ought not, by 
our neglect, long to remain in bondage. * * * 

Since the apostle says " as many of you as are 
baptized have put on Christ," so in our captive 
brethren we must see before us Christ, who hath 
ransomed us from the danger of captivity, who 
hath redeemed us from the danger of death ; 
Him who hath freed us from the abyss of Satan, 
and who now remains and dwells in us, to free 
Him from the hands of barbarians ! With a small 
sum of money to ransom Him who hath ransomed 
us by his cross and blood ; and who hath permitted 
this to take place that our faith may be proved 
thereby ! 

Now, because the Greek word doulos may 
mean a slave, and because it is evident that 
there were men in the Christian church who 
■were called douloi, will anybody say, in the 
whole face and genius of this beautiful in- 
stitution, that these men were held actually as 
slaves in the sense of Roman and American 
law? Of all dry, dull, hopeless, stupidities, 
this is the most stupid. Suppose Christian 
masters did have servants who were called 
douloi, as is plain enough they did, is it not 
•evident that the word douloi had become si^r- 
nificant of something very different in the 
Christian church from what it meant in Roman 
law? It was not the business of the apostles 
to make new dictionaries ; they did not change 
words, — they changed things. The baptized, 
regenerated, new-created doulos, of one body 
and one spirit with his master, made one with 
his master, even as Christ is one with the 
Father, a member with him of that church 
which is the fulness of Him who filleth all 



in all, — was his relation to his Christian mas- 
ter like that of an American slave to his 
master 7 Would he who regarded his weak- 
est brother as being one with Christ hold 
his brother as a chattel personal? Could 
he hold Christ as as a chattel personal ? 
Could he sell Christ for money ? Could he 
hold the temple of the Holy Ghost as his 
property, and gravely defend his right to 
sell, lease, mortgage or hire the same, at 
his convenience, as that right has been argued 
in the slave-holding pulpits of America ? 

What would have been said at such a doc- 
trine announced in the Christian church? 
Every member would have stopped his 
ears, and cried out, "Judas!" If he was 
pronounced accursed who thought that the gift 
of the Holy Ghost might be purchased with 
money, what would have been said of him who 
held that the very temple of the Holy Ghost 
might be bought and sold, and Christ the 
Lord become an article of merchandise? 
Such an idea never was thought of. It 
could not have been refuted, for it never 
existed. It was an unheard-of and unsup- 
posable work of the devil, which Paul never 
contemplated as even possible, that one 
Christian could claim a right to hold another 
Christian as merchandise, and to trade in the 
" member of the body, flesh and bones" of 
Christ. Such a horrible doctrine never pol- 
luted the innocence of the Christian church 
even in thought. 

The directions which Paul gives to Chris- 
tian masters and servants sufficiently show 
what a redeeming change had passed over 
the institution. In 1st Timothy, St. Paul 
gives the following directions, first to those 
who have heathen masters, second, to those 
who have Christian masters. That con- 
cerning heathen masters is thus expressed : 
"Let as many servants as are under the 
yoke count their own masters worthy of all 
honor, that the name of God and his doc- 
trine be not blasphemed." In the next 
verse the direction is given to the servants 
of Christian masters : " They that have be- 
lieving masters, let them not despise them 
because they are brethren, but rather do 
them service because they are faithful and 
beloved, partakers of the benefit." Notice, 
now, the contrast between these directions. 
The servant of the heathen master is said to 
be under the yoke, and it is evidently implied 
that the servant of the Christian master was 
not under the yoke. The servant of the 
heathen master was under the severe Roman 
law ; the servant of the Christian master is 
an equal, and a brother. In these circum- 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



233 



stances, the servant of the heathen master is 
commanded to obey for the sake of recom- 
mending the Christian religion. The ser- 
vant of the Christian master, on the other 
hand, is commanded not to despise his mas- 
ter because he is his brother; but he is to do 
him service because his master is faithful 
and beloved, a partaker of the same glori- 
ous hopes with himself. Let us suppose, 
now, a clergyman, employed as a chaplain 
on a cotton plantation, where most of the 
members on the plantation, as we are in- 
formed is sometimes the case, are members 
of the same Christian church as their mas- 
ter, should assemble the hands around him 
and say, " Now, boys, I would not have you 
despise your master because he is your 
brother. It is true you are all one in Christ 
Jesus ; there is no distinction here; there is 
neither Jew nor Greek, neither negro nor 
white man, neither bond nor free, but ye 
are all brethren, — all alike members of 
Christ, and heirs of the same kingdom; but 
you must not despise your master on this 
account. You must love him as a brother. 
and be willing to do all you can to serve him, 
because you see he is a partaker of the same 
benefit with you, and the Lord loves him as 
much as he does you." Would not such an 
address create a certain degree of astonish- 
ment both with master and servants; and does 
not the fact that it seems absurd show that the 
relation of the slave to his master in Ameri- 
can law is a very different one from what it 
was in the Christian church ? But again, 
let us quote another passage, which slave- 
owners are much more fond of. In Colos- 
sians 4 : 22 and 5 : 1, — " Servants, obey, 
in all things, your masters, according to 
the flesh ; not with eye-service as men- 
pleasers, but in singleness of heart as fear- 
ing God; and whatsoever ye do, do it heartily 
as unto the Lord, and not unto men, know- 
ing that of the Lord ye shall receive the 
reward of the inheritance, for ye serve the 
Lord Christ." "Masters, give unto ser- 
vants that which is just and equal, knowing 
that ye also have a Master in heaven." 

Now, there is nothing in these directions 
to servants which would show that they were 
chattel servants in the sense of slave-law ; 
for they will apply equally well to every 
servant in Old England and New England ; 
but there is something in the direction to 
masters which shows that they were not con- 
sidered chattel servants by the church,' be- 
cause the master is commanded to give unto 
them that which is just and equal, as a con- 



sideration for their service. Of the words 
"just and equal," "just" means that which 
is legally theirs, and "equal" means that 
which is in itself equitable, irrespective of law. 

Now, we have the undoubted testimony t 
of all legal authorities on American slave- 
law that American slavery does not pretend 
to be founded on what is just or equal either. 
Thus Judge Ruffin says: " Merely in the 
abstract it may well be asked which power 
of the master accords with right. The 
answer will probably sweep away all of 
them;" and this principle, so unequivocally 
asserted by Judge Ruffin, is all along im- 
plied and taken for granted, as Ave have 
just seen, in all the reasonings upon slavery 
and the slave-law. It would take very little 
legal acumen to see that the enacting of 
these words of Paul into a statute by any 
state would be a practical abolition of 
slavery in that state. 

But it is said that St. Paul sent Ones- 
imus back to his master. Indeed ! but 
how ? When, to our eternal shame and 
disgrace, the horrors of the fugitive slave- 
law were being enacted in Boston, and the 
very Cradle of Liberty resounded with the 
groans of the slave, and men harder-hearted 
than Saul of Tarsus made havoc of the 
church, entering into every house, haling 
men and women, committing them to pris- 
on ; when whole churches of humble Chris- 
tians were broken up and scattered like 
flocks of trembling sheep ; when husbands 
and fathers were torn from their families, 
and mothers, with poor, helpless children, 
fled at midnight, with bleeding feet, through 
snow and ice, towards Canada ; — in the 
midst of these scenes, which have made 
America a by-word and a hissing and an 
astonishment among all nations, there were 
found men, Christian men, ministers of the 
gospel of Jesus, even, — alas ! that this 
should ever be written, — who, standing in 
the pulpit, in the name and by the authority 
of Christ, justified and sanctioned these enor- 
mities, and used this most loving and simple- 
hearted letter of the martyr Paul to justify 
these unheard-of atrocities ! 

He who said, " Who is weak and I am 
not weak 1 Who is offended and I burn 
not 7" — he who called the converted slave 
his own body, the son begotten in his bonds, 
and who sent him to the brother of his soul 
with the direction, " Receive him as myself, 
not now as a slave, but above a slave, a 
brother beloved," — this beautiful letter, this 
outo'ush of tenderness and love passing the 



234 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



love of woman, was held up to be pawed over 
by the polluted hobgoblin-fingers of slave- 
dealers and slave- whippers as their lettre de 
cachet, signed and sealed in the name of 
Christ and his apostles, giving full authority 
to carry back slaves to be tortured and 
whipped, and sold into perpetual bondage, 
as were Henry Long and Thomas Sims ! 
Just as well might a mother's letter, when, 
with prayers and tears, she commits her first 
and only child to the cherishing love and sym- 
pathy of some trusted friend, be used as an in- 
quisitor's warrant for inflicting impi'isonment 
and torture upon that child. Had not every 
fragment of the apostle's body long since 
mouldered to dust, his very bones would have 
moved in their grave, in protest against such 
slander on the Christian mune and faith. 
And is it come to this, Jesus Christ! have 
such things been done in thy name, and art 
thou silent yet? Verily, thou art a God that 
liidest thyself, God of Israel, the Saviour ! 



CHAPTER V. 



But why did not the apostles preach 
against the legal relation of slavery, and 
seek its overthrow in the state ? This ques- 
tion is often argued as if the apostles were 
in the same condition with the clergy of 
Southern churches, members of republican 
institutions, law-makers, and possessed of all 
republican powers to agitate for the repeal 
of unjust laws. 

Contrary to all this, a little reading of 
the New Testament will show us that the 
apostles were almost in the condition of out- 
laws, under a severe and despotic govern- 
ment, whose spirit and laws they repro- 
bated as unchristian, and to which they sub- 
mitted, just as they exhorted the slave to 
submit, as to a necessary evil. 

Hear the apostle Paul thus enumerating 
the political privileges incident to the minis- 
try of Christ. Some false teachers had 
risen in the church at Corinth, and contro- 
verted his teachings, asserting that they had 
greater pretensions to authority in the Chris- 
tian ministry than he. St. Paul, defending 
his apostolic position, thus speaks: "Are 
they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a 
fool) I am more ; in labors more abundant, 
in stripes above measure, in prisons more 
frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five 
times received I forty stripes save one. 
Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I 
stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night 



and a day have I been in the deep: in jour- 
neyings often, in perils of waters, in perils 
of robbers, in perils by mine own country- 
men, in perils by the heathen, in perils in 
the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils 
in the sea, in perils among false brethren : 
in weariness and painfullness, in watchings 
often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, 
in cold and nakedness." 

What enumeration of the hardships of an 
American slave can more than equal the 
hardships of the great apostle to the Gen- 
tiles 7 He had nothing to do with laws ex- 
cept to suffer their penalties. They were 
made and kept in operation without asking 
him, and the slave did not suffer any more 
from them than he did. 

It would appear that the clergymen of the 
South, when they imitate the example of 
Paul, in letting entirely alone the civil relation 
of the slave, have left wholly out of their 
account how different is the position of an 
American clergyman, in a republican govern- 
ment, where he himself helps make and sus- 
tain the laws, from the condition of the 
apostle, under a heathen despotism, with 
whose laws he could have nothing to do. 

It is very proper for an outlawed slave to 
address to other outlawed slaves exhortations 
to submit to a government which neither he 
nor they have any power to alter. 

We read, in sermons which clergymen at 
the South have addressed to slaves, exhorta- 
tions to submission, and patience, and hu- 
mility, in their enslaved condition, which 
would be exceedingly proper in the mouth 
of an apostle, where he and the slaves were 
alike fellow-sufferers under a despotism whose 
laws they could not alter, but which assume 
quite another character when addressed to 
the slave by the very men who make the 
laws that enslave them. 

If a man has been waylaid and robbed of 
all his property, it would be very becoming 
and proper for his clergyman to endeavor to 
reconcile him to his condition, as, in some 
sense, a dispensation of Providence : but if 
the man who robs him should come to him, 
and address to him the same exhortations, he 
certainly will think that that is quite another 
phase of the matter. 

A clergyman of high rank in the church, in 
a sermon to the negroes, thus addresses them : 

Almighty God hath boon pleased to make you 
slaves here, and to give you nothing but labor and 
poverty in this world, which you are obliged to 
submit to, as it is his will that it should be so. 
And think within yourselves what a terrible tiling 
it would he, after all your labors and sufferings in 
this life, to be turned into hell in the next life ; 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



235 



and, after wearing out your bodies in service here, 
to go into a far worse slavery when this is over, 
and your poor souls be delivered over into the 
possession of the devil, to become his slaves for- 
ever in hell, without any hope of ever getting free 
from it. If, therefore, you would be God's free- 
men in heaven, you must strive to be good and 
serve him here on earth. Your bodies, you know, 
are not your own : they are at the disposal of thosi 
you belong to ; but your precious souls are still 
your own, which nothing can take from you, if it 
be not your own fault. Consider well, then, that 
if you lose your souls by leading idle, wicked lives 
here, you have got nothing hy it in this world, 
and you have lost your all in the next. For your 
idleness and wickedness is generally found out, and 
your bodies suffhr for it here ; and, what is far 
worse, if you do not repent and amend, your un- 
happy souls will suffer for it hereafter. 

Now, this, clergyman was a man of un- 
doubted sincerity. He had read the New 
Testament, and observed that St. Paul ad- 
dressed exhortations something like this to 
8laves in his day. 

But he entirely forgot to consider that 
Paul had not the rights of a republican 
clergyman ; that he was not a maker and sus- 
tainer of those laws by which the slaves 
were reduced to their condition, but only a 
fellow-sufferer under them. A case may be 
supposed which would illustrate this principle 
to the clergyman. Suppose that he were 
travelling along the highway, with all his 
worldly property about him, in the shape of 
bank-bills. An association of highwaymen 
seize him, bind him to a tree, and take away 
the whole of his worldly estate. This they 
would have precisely the same right to do 
that the clergyman and his brother republi- 
cans have to take all the earnings and pos- 
sessions of their slaves. The property Avould 
belong to these highwaymen by exactly the 
same kind of title, — not because they have 
earned it, but simply because they have got 
it and are able to keep it. 

The head of this confederation, observing 
some dissatisfaction upon the face of the 
clergyman, proceeds to address him a re- 
ligious exhortation to patience and submis- 
sion, in much the same terms as he had be- 
fore addressed to the slaves. "Almighty 
God has been pleased to take away your en- 
tire property, and to give you nothing but 
labor and poverty in thi9 world, which you 
are obliged to submit to, as it is his will that 
it should be so. Now, think within yourself 
what a terrible thing it would be, if, having 
lost all your worldly property, you should, 
by discontent and want of resignation, lose 
also your soul ; and, having been robbed of 
all your property here, to have your poor 
soul delivered over to the possession of the 



devil, to become his property forever in hell, 
without any hope of ever getting free from 
it. Your property now is no longer your 
own ; we have taken possession of it ; but 
your precious soul is still your own, and 
nothing can take it from you but your own 
fault. Consider well. then, that if you lose 
your soul by rebellion and murmuring 
against this dispensation of Providence, you 
will get nothing by it in this world, and will 
lose your all in the next." 

Now, should this clergyman say, as he 
might very properly, to these robbers, — 
'• There is no necessity for my being poor 
in this world, if you will only give me back 
my property which you have taken from me," 
he is only saying precisely what the slaves 
to whom he has been preaching might say 
to him and his fellow-republicans. 



CHAPTER VI. 

But it may still be said that the apostles 
might have commanded Christian masters to 
perform the act of legal, emancipation in all 
cases. Certainly they might, and it is quite 
evident that they did not. 

The professing primitive Christian re- 
garded and treated his slave as a brother, 
but in the eye of the law he was .still his 
chattel personal, — a thing, and not a man. 
Why did not the apostles, then, strike at the 
legal relation ? Why did they not command 
every Christian convert to sunder that chain 
at once '? In answer, we say that every at- 
tempt at reform which comes from God has 
proceeded uniformly in this manner. — to 
destroy the spirit of an abuse first, and leave 
the form of it to drop away, of itself, after- 
wards, — to girdle the poisonous tree, and 
leave it to take its own time for dying. 

This mode of dealing with abuses has this 
advantage, that it is compendious and univer- 
sal, and can apply to that particular abuse in 
all ages, and under all shades and modifica- 
tions. If the apostle, in that outward and 
physical age, had merely attacked the legal 
relation, and had rested the whole burden of 
obligation on dissolving that, the corrupt and 
selfish principle might have run into other 
forms of oppression equally bad. and shel- 
tered itself under the technicality of avoiding 
legal slavery. God, therefore, dealt a surer 
blow at the monster, by singling out the 
precise spot where his heart beat, and say- 
ing to his apostles, " Strike there ! " 

Instead of saying to the slave-holder, 



236 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



"manumit your slave," it said to him. 
" treat him as your brother," and left to the 
slave-holder's conscience to say how much 
was implied in this command. 

In the directions which Paul gave about 
slavery, it is evident that he considered the 
legal relation with the same indifference with 
which a gardener treats a piece of unsightly 
bark, which he perceives the growing vigor 
of a young tree is about to throw off by 
its own vital force. He looked upon it as 
a part of an old, effete system of heathen- 
ism, belon^inj; to a set of laws and usages 
which were waxing old and ready to vanish 
away. 

There is an argument which has been 
much employed on this subject, and which 
is specious. It is this. That the apostles 
treated slavery as one of the lawful relations 
of life, like that of parent and child, hus- 
band and wife. 

The argument is thus stated : The apostles 
found all the relations of life much corrupted 
by various abuses. 

They did not attack the relations, but 
reformed the abuses, and thus restored the 
relations to a healthy state. 

The mistake here lies in assuming that 
slavery is the lawful relation. Slavery is 
the corruption of a lawful relation. The 
lawful relation is servitude, and slavery is 
the corruption of servitude. 

When the apostles came, all the relations 
of life in the Roman empire were thoroughly 
permeated with the principle of slavery. 
The relation of child to parent was slavery. 
The relation of wife to husband was slavery. 
The relation of servant to master was slav- 
ery. 

The power of the father over his son, by 
Roman law. was very much the same with 
the power of the master over his slave.* 
He could, at his pleasure, scourge, imprison. 
or put him to death. The son could possess 
nothing but what was the property of his 
father; and this unlimited control extended 
through the whole lifetime of the father, 
unless the son were formally liberated by an 
act of manumission three times repeated, 
while the slave could be manumitted by per- 
forming the act only once. Neither was 
there any law obliging the father to manu- 
mit ; — he could retain this power, if he 
chose, during his whole life. 

Very similar was the situation of the Ro- 
man wife. In case she were accused of 
crime, her husband assembled a meeting of 
her relations, and in their presence sat in 

* See Adams' Koman Antiquities. 



judgment upon her, awarding such punish 
rnent as he thought proper. 

For unfaithfulness to her marriage-vow, * 
or for drinking wine, Romulus allowed her ' 
husband to put her to death.* From this 
slavery, unlike the son, the wife could never 
be manumitted; no legal forms were provided. | 
It was lasting as her life. 

The same spirit of force and slavery per- j- 
vaded the relation of master and servant, 
giving rise to that severe code of slave-law. ! 
which, with a few features of added cruelty, 
Christian America, in the nineteenth cen- j 
tury, has reenacted. 

With regard, now, to all these abuses of 
proper relations, the gospel pursued one ' 
uniform course. It did not command the \ 
Christian father to perform the legal act of 
emancipation to his son; but it infused such 
a divine spirit into the paternal relation, by 
assimilating it to the relation of the heavenly 
Father, that the Christianized Roman Avould 
regard any use of his barbarous and op- 
pressive legal powers as entirely inconsist- 
ent with his Christian profession. So it 
ennobled the marriage relation by comparing 
it to the relation between Christ and his 
church; commanding the husband to love his 
wife, even as Christ loved the church, and 
gave himself for it. It said to him, "No 
man ever yet hated his own flesh, but 
nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the 
Lord the church;" "so ought every one to 
love his wife, even as himself." Not an 
allusion is made to the barbarous, unjust 
power which the law gave the husband. It 
was perfectly understood that a Christian 
husband could not make use of it in con- 
formity with these directions. 

In the same manner Christian masters 
were exhorted to give to their servants that 
which is just and equitable; and, so far from 
coercing their services by force, to forbear 
even threatenings. The Christian master 
was directed to receive his Christianized 
slave, " not now as a slave, but above a 
slave, a brother beloved ;" and, as in all these 
other cases, nothing was said jto him about 
the barbarous powers which the Roman law 
gave him, since it was perfectly, understood 
that he could not at the same time treat him 
as a brother beloved and as a slave in the 
sense of Roman law. 

When, therefore, the question is asked, 
why did not the apostles seek the abolition 
of slavery, we answer, they did seek it. 
They sought it by the safest, shortest, and 
most direct course which could possibly have 
been adopted. 

* Dionys. Hal. n. 25. 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



237 






CHAPTER VII. 



But did Christianity abolish slavery as a 
matter of fact ? We answer, it did. 

Let us look at these acknowledged facts. 
At the time of the coming of Christ, slavery 
extended over the whole civilized world. 
Captives in war were uniformly made slaves, 
and. as wars were of constant occurrence, 
the ranks of slavery were continually being 
reinforced ; and, as slavery was hereditary 
and perpetual, there was every reason to 
suppose that the number would have gone 
on increasing indefinitely, had not some in- 
fluence operated to stop it. This is one fact. 

Let us now look at another. At the time 
of the Reformation, chattel-slavery had en- 
tirely ceased throughout all the civilized 
countries of the world ; — by no particular 
edict, by no special laws of emancipation, 
but by the steady influence of some gradual, 
unseen power, this whole vast system had 
dissolved away, like the snow-banks of win- 
ter. 

These two facts being conceded, the inquiry 
arises, What caused this change? If, now, 
Ave find that the most powerful organization 
in the civilized world at that time did pur- 
sue a system of measures which had a direct 
tendency to bring about such a result, we 
shall very naturally ascribe it to that organ- 
ization. 

The Spanish writer, Balmes, in his work 
entitled " Protestantism compared with Ca- 
tholicity," has one chapter devoted to the 
anti-slavery course of the church, in which 
he sets forth the whole system of measures 
which the church pursued in reference to 
this subject, and quotes, in their order, all 
the decrees of councils. The decrees them- 
selves are given in an appendix at length, in 
the original Latin. We cannot but sympa- 
thize deeply in the noble and generous spirit 
in which these chapters are written, and the 
enlarged and vigorous ideas which they give 
of the magnanimous and honorable nature 
of Christianity. They are evidently con- 
ceived by a large and noble soul, capable of 
understanding such views, — a soul grave, 
earnest, deeply religious, though evidently 
penetrated and imbued with the most pro- 
found conviction of the truth of his own 
peculiar faith. 

We shall give a short abstract, from M. 
Balmes, of the early course of the church. 
In contemplating the course which the church 
took in this period, certain things are to be 
borne in mind respecting the character of 
the times. 



The process was carried on during that 
stormy and convulsed period of society 
which succeeded the breaking up of the Ro- 
man empire. At this time, all the customs 
of society were rude and barbarous. Though 
Christianity, as a system, had been nominally 
very extensively embraced, yet it had not, 
as in the case of its first converts, penetrated 
to the heart, and regenerated the whole nature. 
Force and violence was the order of the day, 
and the Christianity of the savage northern 
tribes, who at this time became masters of 
Europe, was mingled with the barbarities of 
their ancient heathenism. To root the insti- 
tution of slavery out of such a state of society, 
required, of course, a very different process 
from what would be necessary under the 
enlightened organization of modern times. 

No power but one of the peculiar kind 
which the Christian church then possessed 
could have effected anything in this way. 
The Christian church at this time, far from 
being in the outcast and outlawed state in 
which it existed in the time of the apostles, 
was now an organization of great power, and 
of a kind of power peculiarly adapted to that 
rude and uncultured age. It laid hold of all 
those elements of fear, and mystery, and 
superstition, which are strongest in barba- 
rous ages, as with barbarous individuals, and 
it visited the violations of its commands with 
penalties the more dreaded that they related 
to some awful future, dimly perceived and 
imperfectly comprehended. 

In dealing with slavery, the church did 
not commence by a proclamation of universal 
emancipation, because, such was the barba- 
rous and unsettled nature of the times, so 
fierce the grasp of violence, and so many the 
causes of discord, that she avoided adding to 
the confusion by infusing into it this ele- 
ment ; — nay, a certain council of the church 
forbade, on pain of ecclesiastical censure, 
those who preached that slaves ought imme- 
diately to leave their masters. 

The course was commenced first by re- 
stricting the power of the master, and grant- 
ing protection to the slave. The Council 
of Orleans, in 549, gave to a slave threatened 
with punishment the privilege of taking 
sanctuary in a church, and forbade his mas- 
ter to withdraw him thence, without taking 
a solemn oath that he would do' him no harm ; 
and, if he violated the spirit of this oath, he 
was to be suspended from the church and 
the sacraments, — a doom which in those days 
was viewed with such a degree of supersti- 
tious awe, that the most barbarous would 
scarcely dare to incur it. The custom was 
afterwards introduced of requiring an oath 



238 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



on such occasions, not only that the slave 
should be free from corporeal infliction, 
but that he should not be punished by an 
extra imposition of labor, or by any badge 
of disgrace. When this was complained of, 
as being altogether too great a concession on 
the side of the slave, the utmost that could 
be extorted from the church, by way of re- 
traction, was this, — that in cases of very 
heinous offence the master should not be 
required to make the two latter promises. 

There was a certain punishment among 
the Goths which was more dreaded than 
death. It was the shaving of the hair. This 
was considered as inflicting a lasting disgrace.. 
If a Goth once had his hair shaved, it was 
all over with him. The fifteenth canon of 
the Council of Merida, in 666, forbade eccle- 
siastics to inflict this punishment upon their 
slaves, as also all other kind of violence, 
and ordained that if a slave committed an 
offence, he should not be subject to private 
vengeance, but be delivered up to the secular 
tribunal, and that the bishops should use 
their power only to procure a moderation of 
the sentence. This was substituting public 
justice for personal vengeance — a most im- 
portant step. The church further enacted, 
by two councils, that the master who. of his 
own authority, should take the life of his 
slave, should be cut off for two years from 
the communion of the church, — a condition, 
in the view of those times, implying the most 
awful spiritual risk, separating the man in 
the eye of society from all that was sacred, 
and teaching him to regard himself, and 
others to regard him, as a being loaded with 
the weight of a most tremendous sin. 

Besides the protection given tolife and limb, 
the .church threw her shield over the family 
condition of the slave. By old Roman law, 
the slave could not contract a legal, inviola- 
ble marriage. The church of that age 
availed itself of the catholic idea of the sacra- 
mental nature of marriage to conflict with 
this heathenish doctrine. Pope Adrian I. 
said, " According to the words of the apostle, 
as in Jesus Christ we ought not to deprive 
cither slaves or freemen of the sacraments 
of the church, so it is not allowed in any 
way to prevent the marHage of slaves ; and 
if their marriages have been contracted in 
spile of the opposition and repugnance 
of their masters^ nevertheless they ought 
not to be dissolved." St. Thomas was of 
the same opinion, for he openly maintains 
that, with respect to contracting marriage, 
" slaves arc not obliged to obey their ??ias- 
tcrs." 



It can easily be seen what an effect was 
produced when the personal safety and family 
ties of the slaves were thus proclaimed 
sacred by an authority which no man living 
dared dispute. It elevated the slave in the 
eyes of his master, and awoke hope arid self- 
respect in his own bosom, and powerfully 
tended to fit him for the reception of that 
liberty to which the church by many ave- 
nues was constantly seeking to conduct him. 

Another means which the church used to 
procure emancipation was a jealous care of 
the freedom of those already free. 

Every one knows how in our Southern 
States the boundaries of slavery are continu- 
ally increasing, for want of some power there 
to perform the same kind office. The liberated 
slave, travelling without his papers, is con- 
tinually in danger of being taken up, thrown 
into jail, and sold to pay his jail-fees. He 
has no bishop to help him out of his troubles. 
In no church can he take sanctuary. Hun- 
dreds and thousands of helpless men and 
women are every year engulfed in slavery 
in this manner. 

The church, at this time, took all enfran- 
chised slaves under her particular protection. 
The act of enfranchisement was made a re- 
ligious service, and was solemnly performed 
in the church ; and then the church received 
the newly-made freeman to her protecting 
arms, and guarded his newly-acquired rights 
by her spiritual power. The first Council 
of Orange, held in 441, ordained in its 
seventh canon that the church should check 
by ecclesiastical censures whoever desired 
to reduce to any kind of servitude slaves 
who had been emancipated within the enclos- 
ure of the church. A century later, the 
same prohibition was repeated in the seventh 
canon of the fifth Council of Orleans, held 
in 549. The protection given by the church 
to freed slaves was so manifest and known to 
all, that the custom was introduced of espe- 
cially recommending them to her, either in 
lifetime or by will. The Council of Agde. 
in Languedoc. passed a resolution command- 
ing the church, in all cases of necessity, to 
undertake the defence of those to whom 
their masters had, in a lawful way, given 
liberty. 

Another anti-slavery measure which the 
church pursued with distinguished zeal had 
the same end in view, that is, the pre- 
vention of the increase of slavery. It 
was the ransoming of captives. As at that 
time it was customary for captives in war to 
be made slaves of, unless ransomed, and as. 
owing to the unsettled state of society, ware 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



239 



were frequent, slavery might have been in- 
definitely prolonged, had not the church 
made the greatest efforts in this way. The 
ransoming of si ives in those days held the 
same place in the affections of pious and de- 
voted members of the church that the enter- 
prise of converting the heathen now does. 
Many of the unst eminent Christians, in their 
excess of zeal, even sold themselves into 
captivity that they might redeem distressed 
families. Chateaubriand describes a Christian 
priest in France who voluntarily devoted 
himself to slavery for the ransom of a Chris- 
tian soldier, and thu3 restored a husband to 
his desolate wife, and a father to three unfoi*- 
tunate children. Such were the deeds which 
secured to men in those days the honor of 
saintship. Such was the history of St. 
Zachary. whose story drew tears from many 
eyes, and excited many hearts to imitate so 
sublime a charity. In this the}'- did but 
imitate the spirit of the early Christians ; 
for the apostolic Clement says, "We know 
how many among ourselves have given up 
themselves unto bonds, that thereby they 
might free others from them." (1st letter 
to the Corinthians, § 55, or ch. xxi. v. 
20.) One of the most distinguished of 
the Frankish bishops was St. Eloy. He 
was originally a goldsmith of remarkable 
skill in his art, and by his integrity and 
trustworthiness won the particular esteem 
and confidence of King Clotaire I., and 
stood high in his court. Of him Ne- 
ander speaks as follows. " The cause of the 
gospel was to him the dearest interest, to 
which everything else was made subservient. 
While working at his art, he always had a 
Bible open before him. The abundant income 
of his labors he devoted to religious objects 
and deeds of charity. Whenever he heard 
of captives, who in these days were often 
dragged off in troops as slaves that were 
to be sold at auction, he hastened to the 
spot and paid dawn their price." Alas for 
our slave-coffles ! — there are no such bishops 
now ! " Sometimes, by his means, a hundred 
at once, men and women, thus obtained their 
liberty. He then left it to their choice, 
either to return home, or to remain with him 
as free Christian brethren, or to become 
monks. In the first case, he gave them 
money for their journey ; in the last, which 
pleased him most, he took pains to procure 
them a handsome reception into some 
monastery." 

So great was the zeal of the church for 
the ransom of unhappy captives, that even 
the ornaments and sacred vessels of the 



church were sold for their ransom. By the 
fifth canon of the Council of Macon, held in 
585, it appears that the priests devoted 
church property to this purpose. The Coun- 
cil of Rheims, held in 625. orders the punish- 
ment of suspension on the bishop who shall 
destroy the sacred vessels FOR any otiier 

MOTIVE THAN THE RANSOM OF CAPTIVES; 

and in the twelfth canon of the Councilof 
Verneuil, held in 844, we find that the prop- 
erty of the church was still used for this 
benevolent purpose. 

When the church had thus redeemed the 
captive, she still continued him under her 
special protection, giving him letters of re- 
commendation which should render his liberty 
safe in the eyes of a41 men. The Council of 
Lyons, held in 533, enacts that bishops shall 
state, in the letters of recommendation which 
they give to redeemed slaves, the date and 
price of their ransom. The zeal for this 
work was so ardent that some of the clergy 
even went so far as to induce captives to 
run away. A council called that of St. 
Patrick, held in Ireland, condemns this 
practice, and says that the clergyman who 
desires to ransom captives must do so with 
his own money, for to induce them to run 
away was to expose the clergy to be con- 
sidered as robbers, which was a dishonor to 
the church. The disinterestedness of the 
church in this work appears from the fact 
that, when she had employed her funds for 
the ransom of captives she never exacted 
from them any recompense, even when they 
had it in their power to discharge the debt. 
In the letters of St. Gregory, he reassures 
some persons who had been freed by the 
church, and who feared that they should be 
called upon to refund the money which had 
been expended on them. The Pope orders 
that no one, at any time, shall venture to 
disturb them or their heirs, because the sa- 
cred canons allow the employment of the 
goods of the church for the ransom of cap- 
tives. (L. 7, Ep. 14.) Still further to 
guard against the increase of the number of 
slaves, the Council of Lyons, in 5bb, ex- 
communicated those who unjustly retained 
free persons in slavery. 

If there were any such laws in the South- 
ern States, and all were excommunicated who 
are doing this, there would be quite a sen- 
sation, as some recent discoveries show. 

In 625, the Council of Rheims decreed 
excommunication to all those who pursue 
free persons in order to reduce them to 
slavery. The twenty-seventh canon of the 
Council of London, held 1102, forbade the 



240 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



barbarous custom of trading in men, like 
animals ; and the seventh canon of the Coun- 
cil of Coblentz, held 922, declares that he 
who takes away a Christian to sell him is 
guilty of homicide. A French council, 
held in Verneuil in 616, established the law 
that all persons who had been sold into 
slavery on account of poverty or debt should 
receive back their liberty by the restoration 
of the price which had been paid. It will 
readily be seen that this opened a wide field 
for restoration to liberty in an age where so 
great a Christian zeal had been awakened for 
the redeeming of slaves, since it afforded op- 
portunity for Christians to interest themselves 
in raising the necessary ransom. 

At this time the Jews occupied a very 
peculiar place among the nations. The spirit 
of trade and commerce was ajmost entirely 
confined to them, and the great proportion 
of the wealth was in their hands, and, of 
course, many slaves. The regulations which 
the church passed relative to the slaves of 
Jews tended still further to strengthen the 
principles of liberty. They forbade Jews to 
compel Christian slaves to do things contrary 
to the religion of Christ. They allowed 
Christian slaves, who took refuge in the 
church, to be ransomed, by paying their 
masters the proper price. 

This produced abundant results in favor 
of liberty, inasmuch as they gave Christian 
slaves the opportunity of flying to churches, 
and there imploring the charity of their 
brethren. They also enacted that a Jew 
who should pervert a Christian slave should 
be condemned to lose all his slaves. This 
was a new sanction to the slave's conscience, 
and a new opening for liberty. After that, 
they proceeded to forbid Jews to have Chris- 
tian slaves, and it was allowed to ransom 
those in their possession for twelve sous. 
As the Jews were anions the greatest trad- 
ers of the time, the forbidding them to keep 
slaves was a very decided step toward gen- 
eral emancipation. 

Another means of lessening the ranks of 
slavery was a decree passed in a council 
«t Home, in 595, presided over by Pope 
Gregory the Great. This decree offered 
liberty to all who desired to embrace the 
monastic life. This decree, it is said, led to 
great scandal, as slaves fled from the houses 
of their masters in great numbers, and took 
refuge in monasteries. 

The church also ordained that any slave 
who felt a calling to enter the ministry, and 
appeared qualified therefor, should be al- 
lowed to pursue his vocation ; and enjoined 



it upon his master to liberate him, since the 
church could not permit her minister to wear 
the yoke of slavery. It is to be presumed 
that the phenomenon, on page 176, of a 
preacher with both toes cut off and branded 
on the breast, advertised as a runaway in the 
public papers, was not one which could 
have occurred consistently with the Chris- 
tianity of that period. 

Under the influence of all these regula- 
tions, it is not surprising that there are docu- 
ments cited by M. Balmes which go to show 
the following things. First, that the number 
of slaves thus liberated was very great, as 
there was universal complaint upon this head. 

Second, that the bishops were complained 
of as being always in favor of the slaves, 
as carrying their protection to very great 
lengths, laboring in all ways to realize the 
doctrine of man's equality,- and it is affirmed 
in the documents that complaint is made that 
there is hardly a bishop who cannot be charged 
with reprehensible compliances in favor of 
slaves, and that slaves were aware of this 
spirit of protection, and were ready to throw 
off their chains, and cast themselves into the 
church. 

It is not necessary longer to extend this 
history. It is as perfectly plain whither 
such a course tends, as it is whither the 
course pursued by the American clergy at 
the South tends. We are not surprised that 
under such a course, on the one hand, the 
number of slaves decreased, till there were 
none in modern Europe. We are not sur- 
prised by such a course, on the other hand, 
that they have increased until there are three 
millions in America. 

Alas for the poor slave ! What church 
befriends him? In what house of prayer 
can he take sanctuary? What holy men 
stand forward to rebuke the wicked law that 
denies him legal marriages'? What pious 
bishops visit slave-caffles to redeem men. 
women and children, to liberty ? What holy 
exhortations in churches to buy the freedom 
of wretched captives ? When have church 
velvets been sold, and communion-cups melted 
down, to liberate the slave? Where are the 
pastors, inflamed with the love of Jesus, who 
have sold themselves into slavery to restore 
separated families? Where are those honor- 
able complaints of the world that the church 
is always on the side of the oppressed ? — 
that the slaves feel the beatings of her gene- 
rous heart, and long to throw themselves into 
her arms ? Love of brethren, holy chari- 
ties, love of Jesus, — where are ye? — Are 
ye fled forever ? 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



241 



> 



CHAPTER VIII. 

•' Masters, give unto your servants that which is just 
and equal." 

From what has been said in the last chap- 
ter, it is presumed that it will appear that 
the Christian church of America by no 
means occupies that position, with regard to 
slavery, that the apostles did, or that the 
church of the earlier ages did. 

However they may choose to interpret the 
language of the apostles, the fact still re- 
mains undeniable, that the church organiza- 
tion which grew up immediately after these 
instructions, did intend and did effect the 
abolition of slavery. 

But we wish to give still further consider- 
ation to one idea which is often put forward 
by those who defend American slavery. It 
is this. That the institution is not of itself 
a sinful one, and that the only sin consists 
in the neglect of its relative duties. All 
that is necessary, they say, is to regulate 
the institution by the precepts of the gospel. 
They admit that no slavery is defensible 
which is not so regulated. . 

If, therefore, it shall appear that Ameri- 
can slave-law cannot be regulated by the 
precepts of the gospel, without such altera- 
tions as will entirely do away the whole 
system, then it will appear that it is an 
unchristian institution, against which every 
Christian is bound to remonstrate, and from 
which he should entirely withdraw. 

The Roman slave-code was a code made by 
heathen, — by a race, too, proverbially stern 
and unfeeling. It was made in the darkest 
a^es of the world, before the light of the 
gospel had dawned. Christianity gradually 
but certainly abolished it. Some centuries 
later, a company of men, from Christian na- 
tions, go to the continent of Africa ; there 
they kindle wars, sow strifes, set tribes 
against tribes with demoniac violence, burn 
villages, and in the midst of these diabolical 
scenes kidnap and carry off, from time to 
time, hundreds and thousands of miserable 
captives. Such of those as do not die of ter- 
ror, grief, suffocation, ship-fever, and other 
horrors, are, from time to time, landed on 
the shores of America. Here they are. 
And now a set of Christian legislators meet 
together to construct a system and laws of 
servitude, with regard to these unfortunates, 
which is hereafter to be considered as a Chris- 
tian institution. 

Of course, in order to have any valid title 
to such a name, the institution must be regu- 
16 



lated by the principles which Christ and his 
apostles have laid down for the government 
of those who assume the relation of masters. 
The New Testament sums up these princi- 
ples in a single sentence : ' ' Masters, give unto 
your servants that which is just and equal." 

But, forasmuch as there is always some 
confusion of mind in regard to what is just 
and equal in our neighbor's affairs, our Lord 
has given this direction, by which we may 
arrive at infallible certainty. " All things 
whatsoever ye would that men should do to 
you,«do ye even so to them." 

It is, therefore, evident that if Christian 
legislators are about to form a Christian sys- 
tem of servitude, they must base it on these 
two laws, one of which is a particular speci- 
fication under the other. 

Let us now examine some of the particu- 
lars of the code which they have formed, and 
see if it bear this character. 

First, they commence by declaring that 
their brother shall no longer be considered 
as a person, but deemed, sold, taken, and 
reputed, as a chattel personal. — This is "just 
and equal ! " 

This being the fundamental principle of 
the system, the following are specified as its 
consequences : 

1. That he shall have no right to hold 
property of any kind, under any circum- 
stances. — Just and equal ! 

2. That he shall have no power to con- 
tract a legal marriage, or claim any woman 
in particular for his wife. — Just and equal! 

3. That he shall have no right to his 
children, either to protect, restrain, guide or 
educate. — Just and equal ! 

4. That the power of his master over 
him shall be absolute, without any possi- 
bility of appeal or redress in consequence of 
any injury whatever. 

To secure this, they enact that he shall not 
be able to enter suit in any court for any 
cause. — Just and equal ! 

That he shall not be allowed to bear testi- 
mony in any court where any white person 
is concerned. — Just and equal ! 

That the owner of a servant, for " mali- 
cious, cruel, and excessive beating of his slave, 
cannot be indicted." — Just and equal ! 

It is further decided, that by no indirect 
mode of suit, through a guardian, shall a 
slave obtain redress for ill-treatment. (Do- 
rothea v. Coquillon et al, 9 Martin La. Rep. 
350.) — Just and equal ! 

5. It is decided that the slave shall not 
only have no legal redrcs3 for injuries in- 
flicted by his master, but shall have no re- 



242 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



dress for those inflicted by any other person, 
unless the injury impair his property value. 
— Just and equal ! 

Under this head it is distinctly asserted 
as follows : 

"There can be no offence against the 
peace of the state, by the mere beating of a 
slave, unaccompanied by any circumstances 
of cruelty, or an intent to kill and murder. 
The peace of the state is not thereby broken." 
(State v. Maner, 2 Hill's Rep. S. C.) — Just 
and equal ! 

If a slave strike a white, he is to be con- 
demned to death; but if a master kill his slave 
by torture, no white witnesses being present, 
he may clear himself by his own oath. 
(Louisiana.) — Just and equal ! 

The law decrees fine and imprisonment to 
the person who shall release the servant of 
another from the torture of the iron collar. 
(Louisiana. ) — Just and equal ! 

It decrees a much smaller fine, without 
imprisonment, to the man who shall torture 
him with red-hot irons, cut out his tongue, 
put out his eyes, and scald or maim him. 
(Ibid.) — Just and equal ! 

It decrees the same punishment to him 
who teaches him to write as to him who puts 
out his eyes. — Just and equal ! 

As it might be expected that only very 
ignorant and brutal people could be kept in 
a condition like this, especially in a country 
where every book and every newspaper are 
full of dissertations on the rights of man, 
they therefore enact laws that neither he nor 
his children, to all generations, shall learn 
to read and write. — Just and equal ! 

And as, if allowed to meet for religious 
worship, they might concert some plan of 
escape or redress, they enact that " no con- 
gregation of negroes, under pretence of divine 
worship, shall assemble themselves ; and that 
every slave found at such meetings shall 
be immediately corrected, without trial, by 
receiving on the bare back twenty-five stripes 
with a whip, switch or cowskin." (Law of 
Georgia, Prince's Digest, p. 447.) — Just 
and equal ! 

Though the servant is thus kept in igno- 
rance, nevertheless in his ignorance he is 
punished more severely for the same crimes 
than freemen. — Just and equal ! 

By way of protecting him from over-work, 
they enact that he shall not labor more than 
five hours longer than convicts at hard labor 
in a penitentiary ! 

They also enact that the master or over- 
seer, not the slave, shall decide when he is 
too sick to work. — Just and equal ! 



If any master, compassionating this condi- 
tion of the slave, desires to better it, the law 
takes it out of his power, by the following 
decisions : 

1. That all his earnings shall belong to 
his master, notwithstanding his master's 
promise to the contrary ; thus making them 
liable for his master's debts. — Just and 
equal ! 

2. That if his master" allow him to keep 
cattle for his own use, it shall be lawful for 
any man to take them away, and enjoy half 
the profits of the seizure. — Just and equal ! 

3. If his master sets him free, he shall 
be taken up and sold again. — Just and equal ! 

If any man or woman runs away from 
this state of things, and, after proclamation 
made, does not return, any two justices of 
the peace may delare them outlawed, and 
give permission to any person in the com- 
munity to kill them by any ways or means 
they think fit. — Just and equal ! 

Such are the laws of that system of slavery 
which has been made up by Christian mas- 
ters late in the Christian era, and is now 
defended by Christian ministers as an emi- 
nently benign institution. 

In this manner Christian legislators have 
expressed their understanding of the text, 
"Masters, give unto your servants that 
which is just and equal," and of the text, 
" All things whatsoever ye would that men 
should do to you io ye even so to them." 

It certainlv presents the most extraordi- 
nary view- of justice and equity, and is the 
most remarkable exposition of the principle 
of doing to others as we would others should 
do to us, that it has ever been the good 
fortune of the civilized world to observe. 
This being the institution, let any one con- 
jecture what its abuses must be ; for we are 
gravely told, by learned clergymen, that they 
do not feel called upon to interfere with the 
system, but only with its abuses. We should 
like to know what abuse could be specified 
that is not provided for and expressly pro- 
tected by slave-law. 

And yet, Christian republicans, who, with 
full power to repeal this law, arc daily sus- 
taining it, talk about there being no harm 
in slavery, if they regulate it according to 
the apostle's directions, and give unto their 
servants that which is just and equal. Do 
they think that, if the Christianized masters 
of Rome and Corinth had made such a set 
of rules as this for the government of their 
slaves, Paul would have accepted it as a 
proper exposition of what he meant by just 
and equal I 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 



24< 



But the Presbyteries of South Carolina 
say, and all the other religious bodies at the 
South say, that the church of our Lord 
Jesus Christ has no right to interfere with 
civil institutions. What is this church of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, that they speak of 7 
Is it not a collection of republican men, who 
have constitutional power to alter these laws, 
and whose duty it is to alter them, and who are 
disobeying the apostle's directions every day 
till they do alter them 7 Every minister at 
the South is a voter as much as he is a 
minister ; every church-member is a voter as 
much as he is a church-member ; and minis- 
ters and church-members are among the 
masters who are keeping up this system of 
atrocity, when they have full republican power 
to alter it; and yet they talk about giving 
their servants that which is just and equal ! 
If they are going to give their servants that 
which is just and equal, let them give them 
back their manhood ; they are law-makers, 
and can do it. Let them give to the slave 
the right to hold property, the right to 
form legal marriage, the right to read the 
word of God, and to have such education 
as will fully develop his intellectual and 
moral nature; the right of free religious 
opinion and worship; let -them give him the 
right to bring suit and to bear testimony; 
give him the right to have some vote in 
the government by which his interests are 
controlled. This will be something more 
like giving him that which is "just and 
equal. ; ' 

Mr. Smylie, of Mississippi, says that the 
planters of Louisiana and Mississippi, when 
they are giving from twenty to twenty-five 
dollars a barrel for pork, give their slaves 
three or four pounds a week ; and intimates 
that, if that will not convince people that 
they are doing what is just and equal, he 
does not know what will. 

Mr. C. C. Jones, after stating in various 
places that he has no intention ever to inter- 
fere with the civil condition of the slave, 
teaches the negroes, in his catechism, that 
the master gives to his servant that which 
is just and equal, when he provides for them 
good houses, good clothing, food, nursing, 
and religious instruction. 

This is just like a man who has stolen an 
estate which belongs to a family of orphans. 
Out of its munificent revenues, he gives the 
orphans comfortable food, clothing, &c, 
while he retains the rest for his own use, 
declaring that he is thus rendering to them 
that which is just and equal. 

If the laws which regulate slavery were 



made by a despotic sovereign, over whose 
movements the masters could have no con- 
trol, this mode of proceeding might be called 
just and equal; but, as they are made and 
kept in operation by these Christian masters, 
these ministers and church-members, in com- 
mon with those who are not so, they are every 
one of them refusing to the slave that which 
is just and equal, so long as they do not 
seek the repeal of these laws ; and, if they 
cannot get them repealed, it is their duty to 
take the slave out from under them, since 
they are constructed with such fatal ingenu- 
ity as utterly to nullify all that the master 
tries to do for their elevation and permanent 
benefit. 

No man would wish to leave his own 
family of children as slaves under the care 
of the kindest master that ever breathed; 
and what he would not wish to have done to 
his own children, he ought not to do to 
other people's children. 

But, it will be said that it is not becoming 
for the Christian church to enter into politi- 
cal matters. Again, we ask, what is the 
Christian church 7 Is it not an association 
of republican citizens, each one of whom has 
his rights and duties as a legal voter? 

Now, suppose a law were passed which 
depreciated the value of cotton or sugar three 
cents in the pound, would these men consider 
the fact that they are church-members as 
any reason why they should not agitate for 
the repeal of such law 7 Certainly not. 
Such a law would be brittle as the spider's 
web ; it would be swept away before it was 
well made. Every law to which the ma- 
jority of the community does not assent is, 
in this country, immediately torn down. 

Why, then, does this monstrous system 
stand from age to age 7 Because the com- 
munity consent to it. They re"nact 
these unjust laws every day, by their silent 
permission of them. 

The kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ is 
not of this world, say the South Carolina 
Presbyteries; therefore, the church has no 
right to interfere with any civil institution; 
but yet all the clergy of Charleston could 
attend in a body to give sanction to the pro- 
ceedings of the great Vigilance Committee. 
They could not properly exert the least influ- 
ence against slavery, because it is a civil 
institution, but they could give the whole 
weight of their influence in favor of it. 

Is it not making the. kingdom of our Lord 
Jesus Christ quite as much of this world, to 
patronize the oppressor, as to patronize the 
slave 7 



244 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 



CHAPTER IX. 

IS THE SYSTEM OF RELIGION WHICH IS 
TAUGHT THE SLAVE THE GOSPEL? 

The ladies of England, in their letter to 
the ladies of America, spoke in particular of 
the denial of the gospel to the slave. This 
has been indignantly resented in this country, 
and it has been claimed that the slaves do 
have the gospel communicated to them very 
extensively. 

Whoever reads Mr. Charles C. Jones' 
book on the religious instruction of the ne- 
groes will have no doubt of the following 
facts : 

1. That from year to year, since the in- 
troduction of the negroes into this country, 
various pious and benevolent individuals 
have made efforts for their spiritual welfare. 

2. That these efforts have increased, from 
year to year. 

3. That the most extensive and important 
one came into being about the time that 
Mr. Jones' book was written, in the year 
1842, and extended to some degree through 
the United States. The fairest development 
of it was probably in the State of Georgia, 
the sphere of Mr. Jones' immediate labor, 
where the most gratifying results were wit- 
nessed, and much very amiable and com- 
mendable Christian feeling elicited on the 
part of masters. 

4. From time to time, there have been 
prepared, for the use of the slave, catechisms, 
hymns, short sermons, &c. &c, designed 
to be read to them by their masters, or 
taught them orally. 

5. It will appear to any one who reads 
Mr. Jones' book that, though written by a 
man who believed the system of slavery 
sanctioned by God, it manifests a spirit of 
sincere and earnest benevolence, and of de- 
votedness to the cause he has undertaken, 
which cannot be too highly appreciated. 

It is a very painful and unpleasant task 
to express any qualification or dissent with 
regard to efforts which have been undertaken 
in a good spirit, and which have produced, 
in many respects, good results ; but, in the 
reading of Mr. Jones' book, in the study of his 
catechism, and of various other catechisms 
and sermons which give an idea of the re- 
ligious instruction of the slaves, the writer 
has often been painfully impressed with the 
idea that, howevor imbued and mingled with 
good, it is not the true and pure gospel 
system which is given to the slave. As far 



as the writer has been able to trace out what 
is communicated to him, it amounts in sub- 
stance to this ; that his master's authority 
over him, and property in him, to the full 
extent of the enactment of slave-law, is re- 
cognized and sustained by the tremendous 
authority of God himself. He is told that 
his master is God's overseer ; that he owes 
him a blind, unconditional, unlimited submis- 
sion; that he must not allow himself to 
grumble, or fret, or murmur, at anything 
in his conduct ; and, in case he does so, that 
his murmuring is not against his master, 
but against God. He is taught that it is 
God's will that he should have nothing but 
labor and poverty in this world ; and that, 
if he frets and grumbles at this, he will get 
nothing by it in this life,' and be sent to hell 
forever in the next. Most vivid descriptions 
of hell, with its torments, its worms ever 
feeding and never dying, are held up before 
him ; and he is told that this eternity of tor- 
ture will be the result of insubordination 
here. It is no wonder that a slave-holder 
once said to Dr. Brisbane, of Cincinnati, that 
religion had been worth more to him, on his 
plantation, than a wagon-load of cowskins. 

Furthermore, the slave is taught that to 
endeavor to evade his master by running 
away, or to shelter or harbor a slave who 
has run away, are sins which will expose 
him to the wrath of that omniscient Being, 
whose eyes are in every place. 

As the slave is a movable and merchanta- 
ble being, liable, as Mr. Jones calmly re- 
marks, to "all the vicissitudes of property," 
this system of instruction, one would think, 
would be in something of a dilemma, when it 
comes to inculcate the Christian duties of the 
family state. 

When Mr. Jones takes a survey of the 
field, previous to commencing his system of 
operations, he tells us, what we suppose 
every rational person must have foreseen, 
that he finds ainons; the negroes an utter 
demoralization upon this subject ; that po- 
lygamy is commonly practised, and that the 
marriage-covenant has become a mere tem- 
porary union of interest, profit or pleasure, 
formed without reflection, and dissolved 
without the slightest idea of guilt. 

That this state of things is the necessary 
and legitimate result of the system of laws 
which these Christian men have made and 
are still keeping up over their slaves, any 
sensible person will perceive ; and any one 
would think it an indispensable step to any 
system of religious instruction here, that the 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



245 



negro should be placed in a situation where 
he can form a legal marriage, and can ad- 
here to it after it is formed. 

But Mr. Jones and his coadjutors com- 
menced by declaring that it was not their 
intention to interfere, in the slightest degree. 
with the legal position of the slave. 

We should have thought, then, that it 
would not have been possible, if these masters 
intended to keep their slaves in the condition 
of chattels personal, liable to a constant dis- 
ruption of family ties, that they could have 
the heart to teach them the strict morality 
of the gospel with regard to the marriage 
relation. 

But so it is, however. If we examine 
Mr. Jones' catechism, we shall find that the 
slave is made to repeat orally that one man 
can be the husband of but one woman, and 
if, during her lifetime, he marries another, 
God will punish him forever in hell. 

Suppose a conscientious woman, instructed 
in Mr. Jones' catechism, by the death of her 
master is thrown into the market for the 
division of the estate, like many cases we may 
read of in the Georgia papers every week. 
She is torn from her husband and children, 
and sold at the other end of the Union, 
never to meet them again, and the new mas- 
ter commands her to take another husband ; 
— what, now, is this woman to do? If she 
take the husband, according to her catechism 
she commits adultery, and exposes herself to 
everlasting fire ; if she does not take him, 
she disobeys her master, who, she has been 
taught, is God's overseer; and she is exposed 
to everlasting fire on that account, and cer- 
tainly she is exposed to horrible tortures 
here. 

Now, we ask, if the teaching that has 
involved this poor soul in such a labyrinth 
of horrors can be called the gospel ? 

Is it the gospel, — is it glad tidings in any 
sense of the words 1 

In the same manner, this catechism goes 
on to instruct parents to bring up their chil- 
dren in the nurture and admonition of the 
Lord, that they should guide, counsel, re- 
strain and govern them. 

Again, these teachers tell them that they 
should search the Scriptures most earnestly, 
diligently and continually, at the same time 
declaring that it is not their intention to 
interfere with the laws which forbid their 
being taught to read. Searching the Scrip- 
tures, slaves are told, means coming to people 
who are willing to read to them. Yes, but 
if there be no one willing to do this, what 
then? Anyone whom this catechism has 



thus instructed is sold off to a plantation on 
Red river, like that where Northrop lived] 
no Bible goes with him ; his Christian in- 
structors, in their care not to interfere with 
his civil condition, have deprived him of the 
power of reading; and in this land of dark- 
ness his oral instruction is but as a faded 
dream. Let any of us ask for what sum 
we would be deprived of all power of ever 
reading the Bible for ourselves, and made 
entirely dependent on the reading of others, 
— especially if we were liable to fall into 
such hands as slaves, are, — and then let us 
determine whether a system of religious in- 
struction, which begins by declaring that it 
has no intention to interfere with this cruel 
legal deprivation, is the gospel ! 

The poor slave, darkened, blinded, per- 
plexed on every hand, by the influences which 
the legal system has spread under his feet, 
is, furthermore, strictly instructed in a per- 
fect system of morality. He must not 
even covet anything that is his master's; he 
must not murmur or be discontented; he 
must consider his master's interests as his 
own, and be ready to sacrifice himself to 
them; and this he must do, as he is told, not 
only to the good and gentle, but also to the 
fro ward. He must forgive all injuries, and 
do exactly right under all perplexities ; 
thus is the obligation on his part expounded 
to him, while his master's reciprocal obliga- 
tions mean only to give him good houses, 
clothes, food, &c. &c, leaving every master 
to determine for himself what is good in re- 
lation to these matters. 

No wonder, when such a system of utter 
injustice is justified to the negro by all the 
awful sanctions of religion, that now and 
then a strong soul rises up against it. We 
have known under a black skin shrewd minds, 
unconquerable spirits, whose indignant sense 
of justice no such representations could blind. 

That Mr. Jones has met such is evident ; 
for, speaking of the trials of a missionary 
among them, he says (p. 127) : 

He discovers Deism, Scepticism, Universalism. 
As already stated, the various perversions of the 
gospel, and all the strong objections against the 
truth of God, — objections which ho may, perhaps, 
have considered peculiar only to the cultivated 
minds, the ripe scholarship and profound intelli- 
gence, of critics and philosophers ! — extremes here 
meet on the natural and common ground of a 
darkened understanding and a hardened heart. 

Again, in the Tenth Annual Report of 
the " Association for the Religious Instruc- 
tion of the Negroes in Liberty County, 
Georgia," he says: 



246 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



Allow me to relate a fact which occurred in the 
spring of this year, illustrative of the character 
and knowledge of the negroes at this time. I was 
preaching to a large congregation on the Epistle 
to Philemon; and when I insisted upon fidelity 
and obedience as Christian virtues in servants, and, 
upou the authority of Paul, condemned the practice 
of running away, one-half of my audience delibe- 
rately walked off with themselves, and those that 
remained looked anything but satisfied, either 
with the preacher or his doctrine. After dismis- 
sion, there was no small stir among them : some 
solemnly declared that there was no such epistle 
in the Bible ; others, " that it was not the gos- 
pel;" others, ".that I preached to please masters ;" 
others, "that they did not care if they ever 
heard me preach again." — pp. 24, 25. 

Lundy Lane, an intelligent fugitive who 
has published his memoirs, says that on one 
occasion they (the slaves) were greatly de- 
lighted with a certain preacher, until he told 
them that God had ordained and created 
them expressly to make slaves of. He says 
that after that they all left him, and went 
away, because they thought, with the Jews, 
" This is a hard saying; who can hear it?" 
In these remarks on the perversion of the 
gospel as presented to the slave, we do not 
mean to imply that much that is excellent 
and valuable is not taught him. We mean 
simply to assert that, in so far as the system 
taught justifies the slave-system, so far 
necessarily it vitiates the fundamental ideas 
of justice and morality; and, so far as the 
obligations of the gospel are inculcated on 
the slave in their purity, they bring him 
necessarily in conflict with the authority of 
the system. As we have said before, it is 
an attempt to harmonize light with darkness, 
and Christ with Belial. Nor is such an at- 
tempt to be justified and tolerated, because 
undertaken in the most amiable spirit by 
amiable men. Our admiration of some of 
the laborers who have conducted this system 
is very great ; so also is our admiration of 
many of the Jesuit missionaries who have 
spread the Roman Catholic religion among 
our aboriginal tribes. Devotion and disin- 
terestedness could be carried no further than 
some of both these classes of men have carried 
them. 

But, while our respect for these good men 
must not seduce us as Protestants into an 
admiration of the system which they taught, 
so our esteem for our Southern brethren 
must not lead us to admit that a system 
which fully justifies the worst kind of spir- 
itual and temporal despotism can properly 
represent the gospel of him who came to 
preach deliverance to the captives. 

To prove that we have not misrepresented 



the style of instruction, we will give some 
extracts from various sermons and discourses* 
In the first place, to show how explicitly 
religious teachers disclaim any intention of 
interfering in the legal relation (see Mr. 
Jones' work. p. 157) : 

By law or custom, they are excluded from the 
advantages of education ; and, by consequence, 
from the reading of the word of God ; and this 
immense mass of immortal beings is thrown, for 
religious instruction, upon oral communications 
entirely. And upon whom? Upon their owners. 
And their owners, especially of late years, claim 
to be the exclusive guardians of their religious in- 
struction, and the almoners of divine mercy tow- 
ards them, thus assuming the responsibility of 
their entire Christianization ! 

All approaches to them from abroad are rigidly 
guarded against, and no ministers are allowed to 
break to them the bread of life, except such as 
have commended themselves to the affection and con- 
fidence of their owners. I do not condemn this 
course of self-preservation on the part of our citi- 
zens ; I merely mention it to show their entire 
dependence upon ourselves. 

In answering objections of masters to al- 
lowing the religious instruction of the ne- 
groes, he supposes the following objection, 
and gives the following answer : 

If we suffer our negroes to be instructed, the 
tendency will be to change the civil relations of 
society as now constituted. 

To which let it be replied, that we separate 
entirely their religious and their civil condition, 
and contend that the one may be attended to 
without interfering with the other. Our principle 
is that laid down by the holy and just One : 
" Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, 
and unto God the things which are God's." And 
Christ and his apostles are our example. Did they 
deem it proper and consistent with the good order 
of society to preach the gospel to the servants \ 
They did. In discharge of this duty, did they in- 
terfere with their civil condition ! They did not. 

With regard to the description of heaven 
and the torments of hell, the following is 
from Mr. Jones' catechism, pp. 83, 91, 92: 

Q. Are there two places only spoken of in tho 
Bible to which the souls of men go after death ? — 
A. Only two. 

Q. Which are they? — A. Heaven and hell. 
# * # * * 

Q. After the Judgment is over, into what place 
do the righteous go? — A. Into heaven. 

Q. What kind of a place is heaven ! — A. A 
most glorious and happy place. 

***** 

Q. Shall the righteous in heaven have any 
more hunger, or thirst, or nakedness, or heat, or 
cold? Shall they have any more sin, or sorrow, 
or crying, or pain, or death ? — A. No. 

Q. Repeat " And God shall wipe away all 
tears from their eyes." — A. "And God shall wipe 
away all tears from their eyes, and there shall 
be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying; 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



247 



neither shall there he any more pain ; for the 
former things are passed away." 

Q. Will heaven be their everlasting home ? — 
A. Yes. 

Q. And shall the righteous grow in knowledge 
and holiness and happiness for ever and ever? — 
A. Yes. 

Q. To what place should we wish and strive to 
go, more than to all other places? — A. Heaven. 
***** 

Q. Into what place are the wicked to be cast? 

— A. Into hell. 

Q. Repeat " The wicked shall he turned." — 
A. " The wicked shall be turned into hell, and 
all the nations that forget God." 

Q. What kind of a place is hell? — .4. A 
place of dreadful torments. 

Q. What does it burn with ? — A. Everlasting 
fire. 

Q. Who are cast into hell besides wicked men ? 

— A. The devil and his angels. 

Q. What will the torments of hell make the 
wicked do ? — A. Weep and wail and gnash their 
teeth. 

Q. What did the rich man beg for when he 
was tormented in the flame? — A. A drop of 
cold water to cool his tongue. 

Q. Will the wicked have any good thing in 
hell? the least comfort ? the least relief from tor- 
ment? — A. No. 

Q. Will they ever come out of hell ? — A. No, 
never. 

Q. Can any go from heaven to hell, or from 
hell to heaven ? — A. No. 

Q. What is fixed between heaven and hell ? — 
A. A great gulf. 

Q. What is the punishment of the wicked in 
hell called ? — ,4. Everlasting punishment. 

Q. Will this punishment make them better ? — 
A. No. 

Q, Repeat " It is a fearful thing." — A. "It 
is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the 
living God." 

Q. What is God said to be to the wicked ? — 
A. A consuming fire. 

Q. What place should we strive to escape from 
above all others ? — A. Hell. 

The Rev. Alex. Glennie, rector of All- 
saints parish, Waccauiaw, South Carolina, 
has for several years been in the habit of 
preaching with express reference to slaves. 
In 184-1 he published in Charleston a se- 
lection of these sermons, under the title of 
' ' Sermons preached on Plantations to Con- 
gregations of Negroes." This book contains 
twenty-six sermons, and in twenty-two of 
them there is either a more or less extended 
account, or a reference to eternal misery in 
hell as a motive to duty. He thus describes 
the day of judgment (Sermon 15, p. 90) : 

When all people shall be gathered before him, 
" he shall separate them, one from another, as 
a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats ; 
and he shall set the sheep on the right hand, but 
the goats on the left." That, my brethren, will be 
an awful time, when this separation shall be going 
on ; when the holy angels, at the command of the 
great Judg;\ shall be gathering together all the 
obedient followers of Christ, and be setting them 



on the right hand of the Judgment-seat, and shall 
place all the remainder on the left. Remember 
that each of you must be present; remember that 
the Great Judge can make no mistake ; and that 
you shall be placed on one side or on the other, ac- 
cording as in this world you have believed in and 
obe}-ed him or not. How full of joy and thanks- 
giving will you be, if you shall find yourself placed 
on the right hand ! but how full of misery and 
despair, if the left shall be appointed as your 
portion ! * * * * 

But what shall he say to the wicked on the left 
hand? To them he shall say, " Depart from me, 
ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the 
devil and his angels." He will tell them to de- 
part ; they did not, while here i seek him by re- 
pentance and faith; they did not obey him, and 
now he will drive them from him. He will call 
them cursed. 

(Sermon 1, p. 42.) The death which is the 
wages of sin is this everlasting fire prepared 
for the devil and his angels. It is a fire which 
shall last forever ; and the devil and his angels, 
and all people who will not love and serve 
God, shall there be punished forever. The Bible 
says, " The smoke of their torment ascendeth 
up for ever and ever." The fire is not quenched, 
it never goes out, " their worm dieth not :" their 
punishment is spoken of as a worm always feed- 
ing upon but never consuming them ; it never 
can stop. 

Concerning the absolute authority of the 
master, take the following extract from Bishop 
Mead's sermon. (Brooke's Slavery, pp. 30, 
31, 32.) 

Having thus shown you the chief duties you 
owe to your great Master in heaven, I now come 
to lay before you the duties you owe to your mas- 
ters and mistresses here upon earth ; and for this 
you have one general rule that you ought always 
to carry in your minds, and that is, to do all ser- 
vice for them as if you did it for God himself. 
Poor creatures ! you little consider, when you are 
idle and neglectful of your masters' business, when 
you steal and waste and hurt any of their substance, 
when you are saucy and impudent, when you are 
telling them lies and deceiving them ; or when 
you prove stubborn and sullen, and will not do 
the work you are set about without stripes and 
vexation ; you do not consider, I say, that what 
faults you are guilty of towards your masters and 
mistresses are faults done against God himself, who 
hath set your masters and mistresses over you in 
his own stead, and expects that you will do for 
them just as you would do for Him. And, pray, 
do not think that I want to deceive you when I 
tell you that your ?nasters and mistresses arc God's 
overseers; and that, if you are faulty towards 
them, God himself will punish you severely for it 
in the next world, unless you repent of it, and 
strive to make amends by your faithfulness and 
diligence for the time to come ; for God himself 
hath declared the same. 

Now, from this general rule, — namely, that 
you are to do all service for your masters and 
mistresses as if you did it for God himself, — there 
arise several other rules of duty towards your 
masters and mistresses, which I shall endeavor to 
lay out in order before you. 

And, in the first place, you are to be obedient 
and subject to your masters in all things 



248 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



And Christian ministers are commanded to "ex- 
hort servants to be obedient unto their own mas- 
ters, and to please them well in all things, not 
answering them again, or gainsaying." You see 
how strictly God requires this of you, that whatever 
your masters and mistresses order you to do, you 
must set about it immediately, and faithfully per- 
form it, without any disputing or grumbling, and 
take care to please them well in all things. And 
for your encouragement he tells you that he will 
reward you for it in heaven ; because, while you 
arc honestly and faithfully doing your master's 
business here, you are serving your Lord and 
Master in heaven. You see also that you are not 
to take any exceptions to the behavior of your 
masters and mistresses ; and that you are to be 
subject and obedient, not only to such as are good, 
and gentle, and mild, towards you, but also to 
such as may be froward, peevish, and hard. For 
you are not at liberty to choose your own masters ; 
but into whatever hands God hath been pleased 
to put you, you must do your duty, and God will 
reward you for it. 

# # # # * , 

You are to be faithful and honest to your masters 
and mistresses, not purloining or toasting their 
goods or substance, but showing all good fidelity in 

all things Do not your masters, under 

God, provide for you? And how shall they be 
able to do this, to feed and to clothe you, unless 
you take honest care of everything that belongs 
to them 1 Remember that God requires this of you ; 
and, if you are not afraid of suffering for it here, 
you camiot escape the vengeance of Almighty God, 
who will judge between you and your masters, and 
make you pay severely in the next world for all the 
injustice you do them here. And though you could 
manage so cunningly as to escape the eyes and 
hands of man, yet think what a dreadful thing it 
is to fall into the hands of the living God, who is 
able to cast both soul and body into hell ! 

You are to serve your masters with cheerfulness, 
reverence, and humility. You are to do your mas- 
ters' 1 service with good will, doing it as the will of 
God from the heart, ivithout any sauciness or an- 
swering again. How many of you do things quite 
otherwise, and, instead of going about your work 
witli a good will and a good heart, dispute and 
grumble, give saucy answers, and behave in a 
surly manner ! There is something so becoming 
and engaging in a modest, cheerful, good-natured 
behavior, that a little work done in that manner 
seems better done, and gives far more satisfaction, 
than a great deal more, that must be done with 
fretting, vexation, and the lash always held over 
you. It also gains the good will and love of those 
you belong to, and makes your own life pass with 
more ease and pleasure. Besides, you are to 
consider that this grumbling and ill-will do not 
affect your masters and mistresses only. They 
have ways and means in their hands of forcing 
you to do your work, whether you are willing or 
not. But your murmuring and grumbling is 
against God, who hath placed you in that service, 
who will punish you severely in the next world for 
despising his commands. 

A very awful query here occurs to the 
mind. If the poor, ignorant slave, who 
wastes his master's temporal goods to answer 
some of his own present purposes, be exposed 
to this heavy retribution, what will become 



of those educated men, who, for their tem- 
poral convenience, make and hold in force 
laws which rob generation after generation 
bf men, not only of their daily earnings, but 
of all their rights and privileges as immortal 
beings ? 

The Rev. Mr. Glennie, in one of his ser- 
mons, as quoted by Mr. Bowditch, p. 137, 
assures his hearers that none of them will 
be able to say, in the day of judgment, "I 
had no way of hearing about my God and 
Saviour." 

Bishop Meade, as quoted by Brooke, pp. 
34, 35, thus expatiates to slaves on the ad- 
vantages of their condition. One would 
really think, from reading this account, that 
every one ought to make haste and get 
himself sold into slavery, as the nearest 
road to heaven. 

Take care that you do not fret or murmur, grum- 
ble or repine at your condition ; for this will not only 
make your life uneasy, but will greatly offend Al- 
mighty God. Consider that it is not yourselves, 
it is not the people that you belong to, it is not 
the men that have brought you to it, but it is the 
will of God, who hath by his providence made you 
servants, because, no doubt, he knew that condition 
would be best for you in this world, and help you the 
better towards heaven, if you would but do your 
duty in it. So that any discontent at your not 
being free, or rich, or great, as you see some 
others, is quarrelling with your heavenly Master, 
and finding fault with God himself, who hath . 
made you what you are, and hath promised you 
as large a share in the kingdom of heaven as the 
greatest man alive, if you will but behave yourself 
aright, and do the business he hath set you about 
in this world honestly and cheerfully. Riches 
and power have proved the ruin of many an un- 
happy soul, by drawing away the heart and affec- 
tions from God, and fixing them on mean and 
sinful enjoyments ; so that, when God, who knows 
our hearts better than we know them ourselves, sees 
that they would be hurtful to us, and therefore 
keeps them from us, it is the greatest mercy and 
kindness he could show us. 

You may perhaps fancy that, if you had riches 
and freedom, you could do your duty to God and 
man with greater pleasure than you can now. 
But, pray, consider that, if you can but save your 
souls, through the mercy of God, you will have 
spent your time to the best of purposes in this 
world ; and ho that at last can get to heaven has 
performed a noble journey, let the road be ever so 
rugged and difficult. Besides, you really have a 
great advantage over most white people, who have 
not only the care of their daily labor upon their 
hands, but the care of looking forward and pro- 
viding necessaries for to-morrow and next day, 
and of clothing and bringing up their children, 
and of getting food and raiment for as many of 
you as belong to their families, which often puts 
them to great difficulties, and distracts their 
minds so as to break their rest, and take off their 
thoughts from the aflairs of another world. AVhere- 
as, you are quite eased from all these cares, and 
have nothing but your daily labor to look after, 
and, when that is done, take your needful rest. 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



249 



Neither is it necessary for you to think of laying 
up anything against old age, as white people are 
dbliged to do ; for the laws of the country have 
provided that you shall not be turned off when 
you are past labor, but shall be maintained, while 
you live, by those you belong to, whether you are 
able to work or not. 

Bishop Meade further consoles slaves thus 
for certain incidents of their lot, for which 
they may think they have more reason to 
find fault than for most others. The reader 
must admit that he takes a very philo- 
sophical view of the subject. 

There is only one circumstance which may ap- 
pear grievous, that I shall now take notice of, and 
that is correction. 

Now, when correction is given you, you either 
deserve it, or you do not deserve it. But, whether 
you really deserve it or not, it is your duty, and 
Almighty God requires, that you bear it patiently 
You may perhaps think that this is hard doc- 
trine ; but if you consider it right, you must needs 
think otherwise of it. Suppose, then, that you 
deserve correction ; you cannot but say that it is 
just and right you should meet with it. Suppose 
you do not, or at least you do not deserve so much, 
or so severe a correction, for the fault you have 
committed ; you perhaps have escaped a great 
many more, and at last paid for all. Or, suppose 
you are quite innocent of what is laid to your 
charge, and suffer wrongfully in that particular 
thing ; is it not possible you may have done some 
other bad thing which was never discovered, and 
that Almighty God, who saw you doing it, would 
not let you escape without punishment, one time 
or another ? And ought you not, in such a case, 
to give glory to him, and be thankful that he 
would rather punish you in this life for your 
wickedness, than destroy your souls for it in the 
next life ? But, suppose even this was not the 
case (a case hardly to be imagined), and that you 
have by no means, known or unknown, deserved 
the correction you suffered ; there is this great 
comfort in it, that, if you bear it patiently, and 
leave your cause in the hands of God, he will re- 
ward you for it in heaven, and the punishment 
you suffer unjustly here shall turn to your ex- 
ceeding great glory hereafter. 

That Bishop Meade has no high opinion 
of the present comforts of a life of slavery, 
may be fairly inferred from the following 
remarks which he makes to slaves : 

Your own poor circumstances in this life ou^ht 
to put you particularly upon this, and taking care 
of your souls ; for you cannot have the pleasures 
and enjoyments of this life like rich free people, 
who have estates and money to lay out as they 
think fit. If others will run the hazard of their 
souls, they have a chance of getting wealth and 
power, of heaping up riches, and enjoying all the 
ease, luxury and pleasure, their hearts should long 
after. But you can have none of these things ; 
so that, if you sell your souls, for the sake of 
what poor matters you can get in this world, 
you have made a very foolish bargain indeed. 

This information is certainly very explicit 
and to the point. He continues : 



Almighty God hath been pleased to make you 
slaves here, and to give you nothing but labor and 
poverty in this world, which you are obliged to 
submit to, as it is his will that it "should be so. 
And think within yourselves, what a terrible thing 
it would be, after all your labors and sufferings in 
this life, to be turned into hell in the next life. 
and, after wearing out your bodies in service here, 
to go into a far worse slavery when this is over, 
and your poor souls be delivered over into the 
possession of the devil, to become his slaves for- 
ever in hell, without any hope of ever getting free 
from it ! If, therefore, you would be God's free- 
men in heaven, you must strive to be good, and 
serve him here on earth. Your bodies, you know, 
are not your own ; they are at the disposal of those 
you belong to ; but your precious souls are still 
your own, which nothing can take from you, if it 
be not your own fault. Consider well, then, that 
if you lose your souls by leading idle, wicked lives 
here, you have got nothing by it in this world, 
and you have lost your all in the next. For your 
idleness and Avickedness is generally found out, 
and your bodies suffer for it here ; and, what is far 
worse, if you do not repent and amend, your un- 
happy souls will suffer for it hereafter. 

Mr. Jones, in that part of the work where 
he is obviating the objections of masters to 
the Christian instruction of their slaves, sup- 
poses the master to object thus : 

You teach them that c< God is no respecter of 
persons ;" that " He hath made of one blood, all 
nations of men ;" " Thou shalt love thy neighbor 
as thyself;" "All things whatsoever ye would 
that men should do to you, do ye even so to them ;" 
what use, let me ask, would they make of these 
sentences from the gospel ? 

Mr. Jones says : 

Let it be replied, that the effect urged in the 
objection might result from imperfect and inju- 
dicious religious instruction ; indeed, religious in- 
struction may be communicated with the express 
design, on the part of the instructor, to produce 
the effect referred to, instances of which have oc- 
curred. 

But who will say that neglect of duty and in- 
subordination are the legitimate effects of the 
gospel, purely and sincerely imparted to servants ? 
Has it not in all ages been viewed as the greatest 
civilizcr of the human race ? 

How Mr. Jones would interpret the golden 
rule to the slave, so as to justify the slave- 
system, we cannot possibly tell. We can, 
however, give a specimen of the manner in 
which it has been interpreted in Bishop 
Meade's sermons, p. 116. (Brooke's 
Slavery, &c, pp. 32, 33.) 

" All things whatsoever ye would that men 
should do unto you, do ye even so unto them ;" 
that is, do by all mankind just as you would do- 
sire they should do by you, if you were in their 
place, and they in yours. 

Now, to suit this rule to your particular circum- 
stances, suppose you were masters and mistresses, 
and had servants under you ; would you not desire 
that your servants should do their business faith- 



250 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



fully and honestly, as well when your back was 
turned as while you were looking over thetu? 
Would you not expect that they should take 
notice of what you said to them ? that they 
should behave themselves with respect towards 
you and yours, and be as careful of everything 
belonging to you as you would be yourselves 7 
You are servants : do, therefore, as you would 
wish to be done by, and you will be both good 
servants to your masters, and good servants to 
God, who requires this of you, and will reward 
you well for it, if you do it for the sake of con- 
science, in obedience to his commands. 

The reverend teachers of such expositions 
of scripture do great injustice to the natural 
sense of their sable catechumens, if they sup- 
pose them incapable of detecting such very 
shallow sophistry, and of proving conclu- 
sively that " it is a poor rule that won't 
work both ways." Some shrewd old patri- 
arch, of the stamp of those who rose up and 
went out at the exposition of the Epistle to 
Philemon, and who show such great acute- 
ness in bringing up objections against the 
truth of God, such as would be thought pe- 
culiar to cultivated minds, might perhaps, 
if he dared, reply to such an exposition of 
scripture in this way: " Suppose you were a 
slave, — could not have a cent of your own 
earnings during your whole life, could have 
no legal right to your wife and children, 
could never send your children to school, 
and had, as you have told us, nothing but 
labor and poverty in this life, — how would 
you like it ? Would you not wish your 
Christian master to set you free from this 
condition?" We submit it to every one who 
is no respecter of persons, whether this in- 
terpretation of Sambo's is not as good as 
the bishop's. And if not, why not'? 

To us, with our feelings and associations, 
such discourses as these of Bishop Meade 
appear hard-hearted and unfeeling to the 
last degree. We should, however, do great 
injustice to the character of the man, if we 
supposed that they prove him to have been 
such. They merely go to show how per- 
fectly use may familiarize amiable and es- 
timable men with a system of oppression, 
till they shall have lost all consciousness of 
the wrong which it involves. 

That Bishop Meade's reasonings did not 
thoroughly convince himself is evident from 
the fact that, after all his representations of 
the superior advantages of slavery as a means 
of religious improvement, he did, at last, 
emancipate his own slaves. 

But, in addition to what has been said, 
this whole system of religious instruction is 
darkened by one hideous shadow, — the 
slave-trade. What does the Southern 



church do with her catechumens and com- 
municants ? Read the advertisements of 
Southern newspapers, and see. In every 
city in the slave-raising states behold the 
depots, kept constantly full of assorted 
negroes from the ages of ten to thirty ! In 
every slave-consuming state see the re- 
ceiving-houses, whither these poor wrecks 
and remnants of families are constantly 
borne ! Who preaches the gospel to the 
slave-coffles ? Who preaches the gospel in 
the slave-prisons ? If we consider the tre- 
mendous extent of this internal trade, — if 
we read papers with columns of auction 
advertisements of human beings, changing 
hands as freely as if they were dollar-bills 
instead of human creatures, — we shall then 
realize how utterly all those influences of re- 
ligious instruction must be nullified by leav- 
ing the subjects of them exposed "to all 
the vicissitudes of property." 



CHAPTER X. 

WHAT IS TO BE DONE 1 

The thing to be done, of which I shall 
chiefly speak, is that the whole American 
church, of all denominations, should unitedly 
come up, not in form, but in fact, to 
the noble purpose avowed by the Presby- 
terian, Assembly of 1818, to seek the en- 
tire ABOLITION OF SLAVERY THROUGHOUT 

America and throughout Christendom. 
To this noble course the united voice of 
Christians in all other countries is urgently 
calling the American church. Expressions 
of this feeling have come from Christians of 
all denominations in England, in Scotland, 
in Ireland, in France, in Switzerland, in 
Germany, in Persia, in the Sandwich Islands, 
and in China. All seem to be animated by 
one spirit. They have loved and honored 
this American church. They have rejoiced 
in the brightness of her rising. Her pros- 
perity and success have been to them as their 
own, and they have had hopes that God 
meant to confer inestimable blessings through 
her upon all nations. The American church 
has been to them like the rising of a glorious 
sun, shedding healing from his wings, dis- 
persing mists and fogs, and bringing songs 
of birds and voices of cheerful industry, and 
sounds of gladness, contentment and peace. 
But, lo ! in this beautiful orb is seen a 
disastrous spot of dim eclipse, whose gradu- 
ally widening shadow threatens a total dark- 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



251 



nesg. Can we wonder that the voice of re- 
monstrance comes to us from those who have 
so much at stake in our prosperity and suc- 
cess 1 We have sent out our missionaries 
to all quarters of the globe ; but how shall 
they tell their heathen converts the things 
that are clone in Christianized America ? 
How shall our missionaries in Mahometan 
countries hold up their heads, and proclaim 
the superiority of our religion, when we 
tolerate barbarities which they have repu- 
diated ? 

A missionary among the Karens, in Asia, 
writes back that his course is much embar- 
rassed by a suspicion that is afloat among 
the Karens that the Americans intend to 
steal and sell them. He says : 

I dread the time when these Karens will be able 
to read our books, and get a full knowledge of all 
that is going on in our country. Many of them 
are very inquisitive now, and often ask me ques- 
tions that I find it very difficult to answer. 

No, there is no resource. The church 
of the United States is shut up, in the prov- 
idence of God, to one work. She can 
never fulfil her mission till this is done. So 
long as she neglects this, it will lie in the 
way of everything else which she attempts 
to do. 

She must undertake it for another reason, 
— because she alone can perform the work 
peaceably. If this fearful problem is left to 
take its course as a mere political question, 
to be ground out between the upper and 
nether millstones of political parties, then 
what will avert agitation, angry collisions, 
and the desperate rending the Union ? No, 
there is no safety but in making it a re- 
ligious enterprise, and pursuing it in a 
Christian spirit, and by religious means. 

If it now be asked what means shall the 
church employ, we answer, this evil must 
be abolished by the same means which the 
apostles first used for the spread of Chris- 
tianity, and the extermination of all the 
social evils which then filled' a world lyin^ 
in wickedness. Hear the apostle enumer- 
ate them: "By pureness, by knowledge, 

BY LONG-SUFFERING, BY THE HOLY GlIOST, 
BY LOVE ' UNFEIGNED, BY THE ARMOR OF 
RIGHTEOUSNESS ON THE RIGHT HAND AND 
ON THE LEFT." 

We will briefly consider each of these 
means. 

First, "by Pureness." Christians in the 
Northern free states must endeavor to purify 
themselves and the country from various 
malignant results of the system of slavery ; 
and, in particular, they must endeavor to 



abolish that which is the most sinful, — the 
unchristian prejudice of caste. 

In Hindostan there is a class called the 
Pariahs, with which no other class will asso- 
ciate, eat or drink. Our missionaries tell the 
converted Hindoo that this prejudice is un- 
christian; for God hath made of one blood 
all who dwell on the face of the earth, and 
all mankind are brethren in Christ. With 
what face shall they tell this to the Hindoo, 
if he is able to reply, "In your own Chris- 
tian country there is a class of Pariahs who 
are treated no better than we treat ours. 
You do not yourselves believe the things 
you teach us." 

Let us look at the treatment of the free 
negro at the North. In the States of Indi- 
ana and Illinois the most oppressive and un- 
righteous laws have been passed with regard 
to him. No law of any slave state could be 
more cruel in its spirit than that recently 
passed in Illinois, by which every free negro 
coming into the state is taken up and sold 
for a certain time, and then, if he do not 
leave the state, is sold again. 

With what face can we exhort our South- 
ern brethren to emancipate their slaves, if we 
do- not set the whole moral power of the 
church at the North against such abuses as 
this ? Is this course justified by saying that 
the negro is vicious and idle ? This is add- 
ing insult to injury. 

What is it these Christian states do ? To 
a great extent they exclude the colored 
population from their schools ; they dis- 
courage them from attending their churches 
by invidious distinctions ; as a general fact, 
they exclude them from their shops, where 
they might learn useful arts and trades ; 
they crowd them out of the better callings 
where they might earn an honorable liveli- 
hood ; and, having thus discouraged every 
elevated aspiration, and reduced them to 
almost inevitable ignorance, idleness and 
vice, they fill up the measure of iniquity by 
making cruel laws to expel them from their 
states, thus heaping up wrath against the day 
of wrath. 

If we say that every Christian at the 
South who does not use his utmost influence 
against their iniquitous slave-laws is guilty, 
as a republican citizen, of sustaining those 
laws, it is no less true that every Christian 
at the North who does not do what in him 
lies to procure the repeal of such laws in 
the free states in, so far, gui! ty for their exist- 
ence. Of late years we have had abun- 
dant quotations from the Old Testament 
to justify all manner of oppression. A 



252 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



Hindoo, who knew nothing of this generous 
and beautiful book, except from such pam- 
phlets as Mr. Smylie's, might possibly think 
it was a treatise on piracy, and a general justi- 
fication of robbery. But let us quote from 
it the directions which God gives for the 
treatment of the stranger: "If a stranger 
sojourn with you in your land, ye shall not 
vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth 
among you shall be as one born among you ; 
thou shalt love him as thyself." How much 
more does this apply when the stranger has 
been brought into our land by the injustice 
and cruelty of our fathers ! 

We are happy to say, however, that the 
number of states in which such oppressive 
legislation exists is small. It is also matter 
of encouragement and hope that the unphi- 
losophical and unchristian prejudice of caste 
is materially giving way, in many parts of 
our country, before a kinder and more Chris- 
tian spirit. 

Many of our schools and colleges are 
willing to receive the colored applicant on 
equal terms with the white. Some of the 
Northern free states accord to the colored 
free man full political equality and privileges. 
Some of the colored people, under this en- 
couragement, have, in many parts of our 
country, become rich and intelligent. A 
very fair proportion of educated men is 
rising among them. There are among them 
respectable editors, eloquent orators, and 
laborious and well-instructed clergymen. It 
gives us pleasure to say that among intelli- 
gent and Christian people these men are 
treated with the consideration they deserve ; 
and, if they meet with insult and ill-treatment, 
it is commonly from the less-educated class, 
who, being less enlightened, are always longer 
under the influence of prejudice. At a re- 
cent ordination at one of the largest and 
most respectable churches in Ne\Y York, the 
moderator of the presbytery was a black 
man, who began life as a slave ; and it was 
undoubtedly a source of gratification to all 
his Christian brethren to see him presiding in 
this capacity. He put the questions to the 
candidate in the German lan^ua^c, the 
church being in part composed of Germans. 
Our Christian friends in Europe may, at 
Least, infer from this that, if we have had our 
faults in times past, we have, some of us, 
seen and are endeavoring to correct them. 

To bring this head at once to a practical 
conclusion, the writer will say to every in- 
dividual Christian, who wishes to do some- 
thing for the abolition of slavery, begin by 



doing what lies in your power for the colored 
people in your vicinity. Are there children 
excluded from schools by unchristian preju- 
dice 7 Seek to combat that prejudice by 
fair arguments, presented in a right spirit. 
If you cannot succeed, then endeavor to pro- 
vide for the education of these children in 
seme other manner. As far as in you lies, 
endeavor to secure for them, in every walk 
of life, the ordinary privileges of American 
citizens. If they are excluded from the 
omnibus and railroad-car in the place where 
you reside, endeavor to persuade those who 
have the control of these matters to pursue 
a more just and reasonable course. Those 
Christians who are heads of mechanical 
establishments can do much for the cause by 
receiving colored apprentices. Many mas- 
ters excuse themselves for excluding the 
colored apprentice by saying that if they 
receive him all their other hands will desert 
them. To this it is replied, that if they do 
the thing in a Christian temper and for a 
Christian purpose, the probability is that, if 
their hands desert at first, they will return 
to them at last, — all of them, at least, w r hom 
they would care to retain. 

A respectable dressmaker in one of our 
towns has, as a matter of principle, taken 
colored girls for apprentices, thus furnishing 
them with a respectable means of livelihood. 
Christian mechanics, in all the walks of life, 
are earnestly requested to consider this sub- 
ject, and see if, by offering their hand to 
raise this poor people to respectability and 
knowledge and competence, they may not be 
performing a service which the Lord will 
accept as done unto himself. 

Another thing which is earnestly com- 
mended to Christians is the raising and 
comforting of those poor churches of colored 
people, who have been discouraged, dismem- 
bered and disheartened, by the operation of 
the fugitive slave law. 

In the city of Boston is a church, which, 
even now, is struggling with debt and 
embarrassment, caused by being obliged to 
buy its own deacons, to shield them from the 
terrors of that law. 

Lastly, Christians at the North, we need 
not say, should abstain from all trading in 
slaves, whether direct or indirect, whether 
by partnership with Southern houses or by 
receiving immortal beings as security for 
debt. It is not necessary to expand this 
point. It speaks for itself. 

By all these means the Christian church 
at the North must secure for itself purity 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



253 



from all complicity with the sin of slavery, 
and from the unchristian customs and preju- 
dices which have resulted from it. 

The second means to he used for the abo- 
lition of slavery is "Knowledge." 

Every Christian ought thoroughly, care- 
fully and prayerfully, to examine this system 
of slavery. He should regard it as one upon 
which he is bound to have right views and 
right opinions, and to exert a right influence 
in forming and concentrating a powerful public 
sentiment, of all others the most efficacious 
remedy. Many people are deterred from 
examining the statistics on this subject, be- 
cause they do not like the men who have 
collected them. They say they do not like 
abolitionists, and therefore they will not at- 
tend to those facts and figures which they 
have accumulated. This, certainly, is not 
wise or reasonable. In all other subjects 
which deeply affect our interests, we think it 
best to take information where we can get it, 
whether we like the persons who give it to 
us or not. 

Every Christian ought seriously to ex- 
amine the extent to which our national 
government is pledged and used for the 
support of slavery. He should thoroughly 
look into the statistics of slavery in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, and, above all, into the sta- 
tistics of that awful system of legalized 
piracy and oppression by which hundreds 
and thousands are yearly torn from home 
and friends, and all that heart holds dear, 
and carried to be sold like beasts in the 
markets of the South. The smoke from this 
bottomless abyss of injustice puts out the 
light of our Sabbath suns in the eyes of all 
nations. Its awful groans and wailings 
drown the voice of our psalms and religious 
melodies. All nations know these things of 
us, and shall we not know them of ourselves ? 
Shall we not have courage, shall we not 
have patience, to investigate thoroughly our 
own bad case, and gain a perfect knowledge 
of the length and breadth of the evil we seek 
to remedy '? 

The third means for the abolition of slav- 
ery is "Long-suffering." 

Of this quality there has been some lack 
in the attempts that have hitherto been made. 
The friends of the cause have not had 
patience with each other, and have not been 
able to treat each other's opinions with for- 
bearance. There have been many painful 
things in the past history of this subject ; 
but is it not time when all the friends of the 
slave should adopt the motto, "forgetting 
the things that are behind, and reaching 



forth unto those which are before " ? Let 
not the believers of immediate abolition 
call those who believe in gradual emancipa- 
tion time-servers and traitors ; and let not 
the upholders of gradual emancipation call 
the advocates of immediate abolition fanatics 
and incendiaries. Surely some more broth-, 
erly way of convincing good men can be 
found, than by standing afar off- on some 
Ebal and Gerizim, and cursing each other. 
The truth spoken in love will always go 
further then the truth spoken in wrath ; and, 
after all. the great object is to persuade our 
Southern brethren to admit the idea of any 
emancipation at all. When we have suc- 
ceeded in persuading them that anything 
is necessary to be done, then will be the 
time for bringing up the question whether 
the object shall be accomplished by an im- 
mediate or a gradual process. Meanwhile, 
let our motto be, " Whereto we have already 
attained, let us walk by the same rule, let 
us mind the same things ; and if any man be 
otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this 
unto him." "Let us receive even him that 
is weak in the faith, but not to doubtful dis- 
putations." Let us not reject the good there 
is in any, because of some remaining defects. 

We come now to the consideration of a 
power without which all others must fail, 
— " the Holy Ghost." 

The solemn creed of every Christian 
church, whether Roman, Greek, Episcopal 
or Protestant, says, " I believe in the Holy 
Ghost" But how often do Christians, 
in all these denominations, live and act, 
and even conduct their religious affairs, as if 
they had " never so much as heard whether 
there be any Holy Ghost." If we trust to 
our own reasonings, our own misguided pas- 
sions, and our own blind self-will, to effect 
the reform of abuses, we shall utterly fail. 
There is a power, silent, convincing, irre- 
sistible, which moves over th% dark and 
troubled heart of man, as of old it moved 
over the dark and troubled waters of Chaos, 
bringing light out of darkness, and order out 
of confusion. 

Is it not evident to every one who takes 
enlarged views of human society that a gentle 
but irresistible influence is pervading the 
human race, prompting groanings and long- 
ings and dim aspirations for some coming era 
of good 1 Worldly men read the signs of the 
times, and call this power the Spirit of the 
Age, — but should not the church acknowl- 
edge it. as the spirit of God ? 

Let it not bo forgotten, however, that tho 
gift of his most powerful regenerating influ- 



254 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



ence, at the opening of the Christian dis- 
pensation, was conditioned on prayer. The 
mighty movement that began on the day of 
Pentecost was preceded by united, fervent, 
persevering prayer. A similar spirit of 
prayer must precede the coming of the divine 
Spirit, to effect a revolution so great as that 
at which we aim. The most powerful in- 
strumentality which God has delegated to 
man, and around which cluster all his glori- 
ous promises, is prayer. All past prejudices 
and animosities on this subject must be laid 
aside, and the whole church unite as one 
man in earnest, fervent prayer. Have we 
forgotten the promise of the Holy Ghost? 
Have we forgotten that He was to abide with 
us forever 7 Have we forgotten that it is 
He who is to convince the world of sin. of 
righteousness and of judgment 1 0, divine 
and Holy Comforter ! Thou promise of the 
Father ! Thou only powerful to enlighten, 
convince and renew ! Return, we beseech 
thee, and visit this vine and this vineyard of 
thy planting ! With thee nothing is impos- 
sible ; and what we, in our weakness, can 
scarcely conceive, thou canst accomplish ! 

Another means for the abolition of slavery 
is "Love unfeigned." 

In all moral conflicts, that party who can 
preserve, through every degree of opposition 
and persecution, a divine, unprovokable spirit 
of love, must finally concmer. Such are the 
immutable laws of the moral world. Anger, 
wrath, selfishness and jealousy, have all a 
certain degree of vitality. They often pro- 
duce more show, more noise and temporary 
results, than love. Still, all these passions 
have, in themselves, the seeds of weakness. 
Love, and love only, is immortal ; and when 
all the grosser passions of the soul have 
spent themselves by their own force, love 
looks forth like the unchanging star, with a 
light that never dies. 

In undertaking this work, we must love 
both the slave-holder and the slave. We 
must never forget that both are our brethren. 
We must expect to be misrepresented, to be 
slandered, and to be hated. How can we 
attack so powerful an interest without it? 
We must be satisfied simply with the pleasure 
of being true friends, while we are treated as 
bitter enemies. 

This holy controversy must be one of 
principle, and not of sectional bitterness. 
We must not suffer it to degenerate, in our 
hands, into a violent prejudice against the 
South ; and, to this end, we must keep con- 
tinually before our minds the more amiable 
features and attractive qualities of those 



with whose principles we are obliged to con- 
flict. If they say all manner of evil against 
us, we must reflect that we expose them to 
great temptation to do so when we assail in- 
stitutions to which they are bound by a 
thousand ties of interest and early associa- 
tion, and to whose evils habit has made 
them in a great degree insensible. Tho 
apostle gives us this direction in cases where 
we are called upon to deal with offending 
brethren, " Consider thyself, lest thou also 
be tempted." We may apply this to our 
own case, and consider that if we had been 
exposed to the temptations which surround 
our friends at the South, and received the 
same education, we might have felt and 
thought and acted as they do. But, while we 
cherish all these considerations, we must 
also remember that it is no love to the South 
to countenance and defend a pernicious sys- 
tem ; a system which is as injurious' to the 
master as to the slave ; a system which turns 
fruitful fields to deserts ; a system ruinous 
to education, to morals, and to religion and 
social progress ; a system of which many of 
the most intelligent and valuable men at the 
South are weary, and from which they desire 
to escape, and by emigration are yearly 
escaping. Neither must w T e concede the 
rights of the slave ; for he is also our brother, 
and there is a reason why we should speak 
for him which does not exist in the case of 
his master. He is poor, uneducated and 
ignorant, and cannot speak for himself. We 
must, therefore, with greater jealousy, guard 
his rights. Whatever else we compromise, 
we must not compromise the rights of the 
helpless, nor the eternal principles of recti- 
tude and morality. 

We must never concede that it is an 
honorable thing to deprive working men of 
their wages, though, like many other abuses, 
it is customary, reputable, and popular, and 
though amiable men, under the influence 
of old prejudices, still continue to do it 
Never, not even for a moment, should we 
admit the thought that an heir of God and a 
joint heir of Jesus Christ may lawfully be 
sold upon the auction-block, though it be a 
common custom. We must repudiate, with 
determined severity, the blasphemous doc- 
trine of property in human beings. 

Some have supposed it an absurd refine- 
ment to talk about separating principles and 
persons, or to admit that he who upholds a 
bad system can be a good man. All ex- 
perience proves the contrary. Systems most 
unjust and despotic have been defended 
by men personally just and humane. It is 



KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 



a melancholy consideration, but no less true, 
that there is almost no absurdity and no in- 
justice that has not, at some period of the 
world's history, had the advantage of some 
good man's virtues in its support. 

It is a part of our trial in this imperfect 
life ; — were evil systems only supported by 
the evil, our moral discipline would be much 
less severe than it is, and our course in 
attacking error far plainer. 

On the whole, we cannot but think that 
there was much Christian wisdom in the 
remark, which we have before quoted, of a 
poor old slave-woman, whose whole life had 
been darkened by this system, that we must 
" hate the sin, but love the sinner." 

The last means for the abolition of slavery 
is the " Armor of Righteousness on the right 
hand and on the left." 

By this we mean an earnest application 
of all straight-forward, honorable and just 
measures, for the removal of the system of 
slavery. Every man. in his place, should re- 
monstrate against it. All its sophistical 
arguments should be answered, its biblical- 
defences unmasked by correct reasoning and 
interpretation. Every mother should teach 
the evil of it to her children. Every cler- 
gyman should fully and continually warn his 
church against any complicity with such a 
sin. It is said that this would be introduc- 
ing politics into the pulpit. It is answered, 
that'since people will have to give an account 
of their political actions in the day of judg- 
ment, it seems proper that the minister 
should instruct them somewhat as to their 
political responsibilities. In that day Christ 
will ask no man whether he was of this or 
that part} 7 ; but he certainly will ask him 
whether lie gave his vote in the fear of God, 
and for the advancement of the kingdom of 
righteousness. 

It is often objected that slavery is a distant 
sin, with which we have nothing to do. If 
any clergyman wishes to test this fact, let 
him once plainly and faithfully preach upon 
it. He will probably then find that the roots 
of the poison-tree have run under the very 
hearth-stone of New England families, and 
that in his very congregation are those in 
complicity with this sin. 

It is no child's play to attack an institu- 
tion which has absorbed into itself so much 
of the political power and wealth of this 
nation, and they who try it will soon find 
that they wrestle "not with flesh and blood." 
No armor will do for this warfare but the 
" armor of righteousness." 

To our brethren in the South God has 



255 

pointed out a more arduous conflict. The 
very heart shrinks to think what the faithful 
Christian must endure who assails this insti- 
tution on its own ground ; but it must be 
done. How was it at the North ) There 
was a universal effort to put down the dis- 
cussion of it here by mob law. Printing- 
presses were broken, houses torn down, 
property destroyed. Brave men, however, 
stood firm ; martyr blood was shed for the 
right of free opinion and speech ; and so the 
right of discussion was established. Nobody 
tries that sort of argument now, — its day is 
past. In Kentucky, also, they tried to stop 
the discussion by similar means. Mob vio- 
lence destroyed a printing-press, and threat- 
ened the lives of individuals. But there 
were brave men there, who feared not vio- 
lence or threats of death ; and emancipation 
is now open for discussion in Kentucky. 
The fact is, the South must discuss the 
matter of slavery. She cannot shut it out, 
unless she lays an embargo on the literature 
of the whole civilized world. If it be, 
indeed, divine and God-appointed, why does 
she so tremble to have it touched ? If it be 
of God, all the free inquiry in the world can- 
not overthrow it. Discussion must and will 
come. It only requires courageous men to 
lead the way. 

Brethren in the South, there are many of 
you who are truly convinced that slavery is 
asin, a tremendous wrong; but, if you confess 
your sentiments, and endeavor to propagate 
your opinions, you think that persecution, 
affliction, and even death, await you. Hoav 
can we ask you, then, to come forward? 
We do not ask it. Ourselves weak, irreso- 
lute and worldly, shall we ask you to do 
what perhaps we ourselves should not dare ? 
But we will beseech Him to speak to you, 
who dared and endured more than this for 
your sake, and who can strengthen you to 
dare and endure for His. He can raise you 
above all temporary and worldly considera- 
tions. He can inspire you with that love to 
himself which will make you willing to 
leave father and mother, and wife and child, 
yea, to give up life itself, for his sake. And 
if he ever brings you to that place where 
you and this world take a final farewell of 
each other, where you make up your mind 
solemnly to give all up for his cause, where 
neither life nor death, nor things present nor 
things to come, can move you from this pur- 
pose, — then will you know a joy which is 
above all other joy, a peace constant and 
unchanging as the eternal God from whom 
it springs. 



256 



KEY TO UNCfiE TOM S CABIN. 



Dear brethren, is this system to go on 
forever in your land 1 Can you think these 
slave-laws anything but an abomination to a 
just God? Can you think this internal 
slave-trade to be anything but an abomina- 
tion in his sight ? 

Look, we beseech you, into ■ those awful 
slave-prisons which are in your cities. Do 
the groans and prayers which go up from 
those dreary mansions promise well for the 
prosperity of our country 1 

Look, we beseech you, at the mournful 
march of the slave -comes ; follow the bloody 
course of the slave-ships on your coast. 
What, suppose you, does the Lamb of God 
think of all these things ] He whose heart 
was so tender that he wept, at the grave of 
Lazarus, over a sorrow that he was so soon 
to turn into joy, — what does he think of 
this constant, heart-breaking, yearly-repeated 
anguish? What does he think of Christian 
wives forced from their husbands, and hus- 
bands from their* wives ? What does he 
think of Christian daughters, whom his 
church first educates, indoctrinates and bap- 
tizes, and then leaves to be sold as merchan- 
dise 1 

Think you such prayers as poor Paul 
Etlmondson's, such death-bed scenes as Emily 
Russell's, are witnessed without emotion by 
that generous Saviour, who regards what is 
done to his meanest servant as done to him- 
self? 

Did it never seem to you, Christian ! 
when you have read the sufferings of Jesus, 
that you would gladly have suffered with 
him ? Does it never seem almost ungenerous 
to accept eternal life as the price of such an- 
guish on his part, while you bear no cross 
for him 1 Have you ever wished you could 
have watched with him in that bitter conflict 
at Gethsemane. when even his chosen slept ? 
Have you ever wished that you could have 
Btood by him when all forsook him and fled, — 



that you could have owned when Peter de- 
nied, — that you could have honored him 
when buffeted and spit upon? Would you 
think it.too much honor, could you, like Mary, 
have followed him to the cross, and stood 
a patient sharer of that despised, unpitied 
agony ? That you cannot do. That hour 
is over. Christ, now, is exalted, crowned, 
glorified, — all men speak well of him; rich 
churches rise to him, and costly sacrifice goes 
up to him. What chance have you, among 
the multitude, to prove your love, — to show 
that you would stand by him discrowned, 
dishonored, tempted, betrayed, and suffering? 
Can you show it in any way but by espous- 
ing the cause of his suffering poor? Is 
there a people among you despised and re- 
jected of men, heavy with oppression, ac- 
quainted with grief, with all the power of 
wealth and fashion, of political and worldly in- 
fluence, arrayed against their cause, — Chris- 
tian, you can acknowledge Christ in them ! 

If you turn away indifferent from this 
cause, — "if thou forbear to deliver them 
that are drawn unto death, and those that 
be ready to be slain; if thou sayest, Be- 
hold, we knew it not, doth not he that pon- 
dereth the heart consider it, and he that 
keepeth the soul, doth he not know it, shall 
he not render to every man according to his 
works?" 

In the last judgment will He not say to 
you, "I have been in the slave-prison,— in 
the slave-coffle. I have been sold in your 
markets ; I have toiled for naught in your 
fields; I have been smitten on the mouth 
in your courts of justice ; I have been 
denied a hearing in my own church, — and yo 
cared not for it. Ye went, one to his farm, 
and another to his merchandise." And if 
ye shall answer, " When, Lord?" He shall 
say unto you, "Inasmuch as ye have done 
it to the least of these, my brethren, ye have 
done it unto me." 



V& RECEIVED. 



£*BRA.*B& 



APPENDIX. 



FACT VS. FIGUEES; OR, THE NINE ARAB 
BROTHERS. 

BEING A NEW ARABIAN NIGHT 's ENTERTAINMENT. 

It is a favorite maxim that "figures cannot liey 
We are loth to assail the time-honored reputation 
for veracity of this ancient and most respectable 
race. There may have been days of pastoral in- 
nocence and primitive simplicity, when they did 
not lie. When Abraham sat contemplatively in 
his tent-door, with nothing to do, all the long day, 
but compose psalms and pious meditations, it is 
likely that he had implicit faith in this maxim, 
and never thought of questioning the statistical 
tables of Eliezer of Damascus, with regard to the 
number of camels, asses, sheep, oxen and goats, 
which illustrated the prairie where he was for the 
time being encamped. Alas for those good old 
days ! Figures did not lie then, we freely admit ; 
but we are sadly afraid, from their behavior in 
recent ages, that this arose from no native inno- 
cence of disposition, but simply from want of 
occasion and opportunity. In those days, they 
were young and green, and had not learned what 
they could do. The first inventor, who commenced 
making a numeration table, with the artless pri- 
meval machine of his toes and fingers, had, like 
other great inventors, very little idea of what he 
was doing, and what would be the mighty uses of 
these very simple characters, when men got to 
having republican governments, and elections, 
and discussions of all sorts of unheard-of ques- 
tions in politics and morals, and to electioneering 
among these poor simple Arab herdsmen, the nine 
digits, for their votes on all these complicated sub- 
jects. No wonder that figures have had their heads 
turned ! Such unprecedented power and popular- 
ity is enough to turn any head. We are sorry to 
speak ill of them ; but really we must say, that, 
like many of our political men, they have been 
found on all sides of every subject to an extent 
that is really very confusing. Of course, there is 
no doubt of their veracity somewhere; the only 
problem being, on which side, and where. Is any 
great measure to be carried, no w-a-days? Of 
course, the statistics, cut and dried, in regular 
columns, on both sides of the question, contra- 
dict each other point-blank as two opposite can- 
nons ; and each party marshals behind them, firing 
them off with infinite alacrity, but with no par- 
ticular effect, except the bewilderment of the few 
old-fashioned people, who, like Mr. Pickwick at 
the review, stand on the middle ground. 

If that most respectable female person, Mrs. 
Partington, who, like most unsophisticated old 
ladies, is a most vehement and uncompromising 
abolitionist, could only hear the statistics that are 
to be shown up in favor of slavery, she would take 
off her spectacles and wipe her eyes in pious joy, 
and think that the millennium, and nothing less, 
had come upon earth. Such statistics they are, 
about the woe , and want , and agony, and heathenish 
darkness of Africa, which, by that eminent foreign 
17 



missionary operation, the slave-trade, have Deen 
turned into light and joy and thanksgiving ; here 
she has them, in round figures ; she only needs to 
put on her spectacles and look. " Here, ma'am, you 
have it," says the illustrator ; " look on this side 
of the column : here are three hundred million 
of heathen, — don't spare the figures, — down in 
Africa, sunk in heathenism — never heard the 
sound of the gospel — actually eating each other 
alive. Now, turn to this side of the column, and 
here they all are, over in America, clothed and in 
their right mind, going to church with their mas- 
ters, and finding the hymns in their own hymn- 
books. Now, ma'am, can you doubt the beneficial 
results of the slave-trade?" 

But Mrs. Partington has heard something about 
that middle passage which she thought was 
horrid. 

"By no means, my dear madam," says the 
illustrator, whisking over his papers. " I have 
that all in figures, — average of deaths in the first 
cargoes, 25 per cent., — large average, certainly ; 
they did n't manage the business exactly right ; 
but then the rate of increase in a Christian coun- 
try averages twenty-five per cent, over what it 
would have been in Africa. Now, Mrs. Parting- 
ton, if these had been left in Africa, they would 
have been all heathen ; by getting them over 
here, you have just as many, and all Christians 
to boot. Because, you see, the excess of increase 
balances the percentage of loss, and we make no 
deduction for interest in those cases." 

Now, as Mrs. Partington does not know with 
very great clearness what "percentage" and 
"average" mean, and as mental philosophers 
have demonstrated that we are always powerfully 
affected by the unknown, she is all the more 
impressed with this reasoning, on that account ; 
being one of the simple, old-fashioned people, 
who have not yet gotten over the impression 
that " figures cannot lie." 

" Well, now, really," says she, " strange what 
these figures will do ! I always thought the 
slave-trade was monstrous wicked. But it really 
seems to be quite a missionary work." 

The fact is, that these nomadic Arabs, the dig- 
its, are making a very unfair use, among us, of 
the family reputation gotten up during the palmy 
days of their innocence, when they were a breezy, 
contemplatively unsophisticated race of shep- 
herds, and, to use an American elegance of ex- 
pression, had not yet " cut their eye-teeth." All 
that remains of their Oriental origin in this coun- 
try seems to be a characteristic turn for romancing. 
Not an addition of slave territory has been made 
to the United States, wherein these same Arab 
brothers have not, with grave faces, been brought 
in as witnesses, to swear, by the honor of the fam- 
ily, that it was absolutely essential, for the best 
interest of the African race, that there should be 
more slavery and more slave territory. To be 
sure, it was for the pecuniary gain of the Ainer- 
ican race, but that was not the point insisted on. 
no ! we are always very glad when our inter- 



258 



APPENDIX. 



est coincides with that of the African race ; but 
the extension of slavery is not to be considered in 
that light principally ; it is entirely a system of 
Christian education, and evangelization of one 
race by another. Left to himself, Quashy goes 
right back into heathenism. His very body dete- 
riorates ; he becomes idiotic, insane, deaf, dumb, 
blind, — everything that can be thought of. " Is 
this an actual fact?" asks some incredulous Con- 
gress man, as innocent as Mrs. Partington. " 
yes ! for only look ; here are the statistics. Just 
see ; here in the town of Kittery, in Maine, are 
twenty-seven insane and idiotic black people, and 
down here in the town of Dittery, South Carolina, 
not a single one. Some simple-minded Kittery 
man, who overhears this conversation in the 
lobby, perhaps opens his eyes, and reflects with 
wonder that he never knew that there were so 
many black people in the town. But the Con- 
gress man shows it to him in the census, and he 
concludes to look for them when he goes home, as 
" figures cannot lie." 

On the census of 1840 conclusions innumerable 
as to the. capacity of the colored race to subsist in 
freedom have been based. It has been the very 
beetle, sledge-hammer and broad-axe ; and when 
all other means fail, the objector, with a tri- 
umphant flourish, exclaims, " There, sir, what do 
you think of the census of 1840 ? You see, sir, 
the thing's been tried, and it's no go." We 
poor common folks cannot tell what to think. 
Some of us suppose that we know that there were 
more insane and idiotic and variously dilapidated 
negroes reported in certain states than their 
entire negro population. But, of course, as it 's 
down in the census, and as "figures never lie," 
we must believe our own eyes. We can only say 
what some people have thought. 

That most inconvenient and pertinacious man, 
John Quincy Adams, made a good deal of trouble 
in Congress about this same matter. At no less 
than five different times did this very persistent 
old gentleman rise in Congress, with the state- 
ment that the returns of the census had been 
notoriously and grossly falsified in this respect ; 
and that he was prepared, if leave were given, 
to present before the House the most complete, 
direct, and overwhelming evidence to this effect. 
The following is an account of Mr. Adams' en- 
deavors on this subject, collected from the Con- 
gressional Globe, and Nilcs' s Register: 

TWENTV-EtUIITII CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

IIouse of Representatives. February 26, 1844. 
— Mr. Adams, on leave, otfered the following reso- 
lution : 

Resolved, That the Secretary of State be directed 
to inform this House whether any gross errors have 
been discovered in the "Sixth Census, or Enumera- 
tion of the; Inhabitants of the United States, as cor- 
rected at the Department of State in 1841," and, if 
so, how these errors originated, what they are, and 
what, if any, measures have been taken to rectify 
them. 

House of REPRESENTATIVES. May 6, 1814. — The 
journal having been read, Mr. Adams moved a cor- 
rection of the same by striking out from the commu- 
nication of the Secretary of State (in answer to a 
resolution of this Bouse inquiring whether any gross 
errors had been discovered in the printing of the Sixth 
Census), as copied upon the journal, the following 
words : "Tint no Bucb errors had been discovered." 

Mr. Adams accompanied his motion with some re- 
marks. It could not possibly (Mr. Whims said) be a 
correct representation, as very gross errors lmd been 



discovered, as he intended and would pledge himself 
to show. He said they referred to the number of 
insane, blind, &c, among the colored population. 
This had been made the subject of a pamphlet on the 
annexation of Texas, and of a speech by a gentleman 
from Mississippi (Mr. Hammett), which had been re- 
futed on this floor. The United States were at this 
time placed in a condition very little short of war with 
Great Britain, as well as Mexico, on the foundation 
of these very errors. It was important, therefore, 
that the true state of facts should be made to appear. 

The Speaker remarked that whether errors existed 
or not would be matter of investigation. In the 
opinion of the chair, there was no error of the jour- 
nal, because it contained only a faithful transcript of 
the communication made by the Secretary of State. 

Mr. Adams persisted in his motion. It was (he 
said) the most extraordinary communication ever 
made from the State Department. He would pledge 
himself to produce documents to prove that gross 
errors did exist. He would produce such proof as no 
man would be able to contradict. 

The House refused to amend the journal. 

House of Representatives. May 16, 1844. — Mr. 
Adams wished to present a memorial from certain 
citizens in relation to errors which they say have been 
committed in compiling and printing the last census 
of the United States. 

Objection being made, he moved to suspend the 
rules for the purpose of offering the resolution, and 
moving to refer it to a committee of five members. 
The yeas and nays were ordered, and, being taken, 
the rules were not suspended, — ayes 96, nays 49, — 
less than two-thirds voting in the affirmative. 

House of Representatives. Dec. 10, 1844. — Mr. 
Adams presented a petition from the American Statis- 
tical Society, in relation to certain errors in the last 
or sixth census. 

Mr. Adams said a petition on this subject at the last 
session was referred to a select committee, and he 
hoped this petition would take the same direction. 
He moved the appointment of a select committee of 
nine members, and that the memorial be printed. 

The speaker announced that a majority had decided 
in favor of a select committee. The motion to print 
was laid on the table. 

House of Representatives. Dec. 13, 1844. — The 
following is the Select Committee appointed, on the 
motion of Mr. Adams, to consider the petition from 
the American Statistical Society in relation to the 
errors in the sixth census: Messrs. Adams, Rhett, 
Rayner, Stiles, Maclay, Brengle, Foster, Sheppard, 
Cary, and Caleb B. Smith. 

This was the end of the affair in Congress. The 
false returns stand to this day in the statistical 
tables of the census, to convince all cavillers of the 
unfitness of the negro for freedom. That the 
reader may know what kind of evidence Mr. Ad- 
ams had with which to sustain his allegations, 
we append, as a specimen, an extract from tha 
American Almanac for 1845, p. 150. 

The "American Statistical Association," estab- 
lished in Boston, Mass., sent a memorial to Congress 
during the past winter, drawn up by Messrs. William 
Brigham, Edward Jarvis,- and J. W. Thornton, in 
which, though they " confined their investigations to 
the reports respecting education and nosology," they 
exposed an extraordinary mass of errors in the cen- 
sus. We can find room only for a few extracts from 
this memorial. 

"The most glaring and remarkable errors are found 
in the statements respecting nosology, the prevalence 
of insanity, blindness, deafness and dumbness, among 
the people of this nation. 

" The undersigned have compared these statements 
with information obtained from other more reliable 



APPENDIX. 



259 



sources, and have found them widely varying from 
the truth ; and, more than all, they have compared 
the statements in one part of the census with those in 
another part, and have found most extraordinary 
discrepances. They hava also examined the original 
manuscript copy of the census, deposited by the mar- 
shal of the District of Massachusetts in the clerk's 
office in Boston, and have compared this with the 
printed edition of both Blair and Rives, and Thomas 
Allen, and found here, too, a variance of statements. 

" Your memorialists are aware that some of these 
errors in respect to Massachusetts, and perhaps also 
in respect to other states, were committed by the 
marshals. Mr. William H. Williams, deputy mar- 
shal, states that there were one hundred and thirty- 
three colored pauper lunatics in the family of Samuel 
B. Woodward, in the town of Worcester ; but on 
another page he states that there are no colored per- 
sons in said Woodward's family. 

" Mr. Benali Blood, deputy marshal, states, on one 
page, that there were fourteen colored pauper lunatics 
and two colored lunatics, who were supported at pri- 
vate charge, in the family of Charles E. Parker, in the 
town of Pepperell ; while on another page he states 
that there are no colored persons in the family of said 
Parker. Mr. William M. Packson states, on one page, 
that there are in the family of Jacob Cushman, in the 
town of Plympton, four pauper colored lunatics, and 
one colored blind person ; while on another page he 
states that there are no colored persons in the family 
of said Cushman. 

" But, on comparing the manuscript copy of the 
census at Boston with the printed edition of Blair and 
Rives, the undersigned are convinced that a large 
portion of the errors were made by the printers, and 
that hardly any of the errors of the original doc- 
ument are left out. The original document finds the 
colored insane in twenty-nine towns, while the printed 
edition of Blair and Rives places them in thirty-five 
towns, and each makes them more than ten-fold greater 
than the state returns in regard to the paupers. And 
one edition has given twenty, and the other twenty- 
seven, self-supporting lunatics, in towns in which, 
according to private inquiry, none are to be found. 
According to the original and manuscript copy of the 
census, there were iu Massachusetts ten deaf and 
dumb and eight blind colored persons ; whereas the 
printed editions of the same document multiply them 
into seventeen of the former and twenty-two of the 
latter class of unfortunates. 

" The printed copy of the census declares that there 
were in the towns of Hingham and Scituate nineteen 
colored persons who were deaf and dumb, blind, or 
insane. On the other hand, the undersigned are in- 
formed, by the overseers of the poor and the assessors, 
who have cognizance of every pauper and tax-payer 
in the town, that in the last twelve years no such 
diseased persons have lived in the town of Scituate ; 
and they have equally certain proof that none such 
have lived in Hingham. Moreover, the deputy mar- 
shals neither found nor made record of such per- 
sons. 

"The undersigned have carefully compared the 
number of colored insane and idiots, and of the deaf 
and dumb and blind, with the whole number of the 
colored population, as stated in the printed edition of 
the census, in every city, town, and county of the 
United States ; and have found the extraordinary con- 
tradictions and improbabilities that are shown in the 
following tables. 

" The errors of the census are as certain, if not as 
manifest, in regard to the insanity among the whites, 
as among the colored people. Wherever your memo- 
rialists have been able to compare the census with the 
results of the investigations of the state governments, 
of individuals, or societies, they have found that the 
national enumeration has fallen far short of the more 
probable amount. 

"According to the census, there were in Massa- 



chusetts six hundred and twenty-seven lunatics and 
idiots supported at public charge ; according to the 
returns of the overseers of the poor, there were eight 
hundred and twenty-seven of this class of paupers. 

" The superintendents of the poor of the State of 
New York report one thousand and fifty -eight pauper 
lunatics within that state ; the census reports only 
seven hundred and thirty-nine. 

"The government of New Jersey reports seven 
hundred and one in that state ; the census discovers 
only four hundred and forty-two. 

"The Medical Society of Connecticut discovered 
twice as many lunatics as the census within that 
state. A similar discrepancy was found in Eastern 
Pennsylvania, and also in some counties in Virginia. 

" Your memorialists deem it needless to go further 
into detail in this matter. Suffice it to say, that these 
are but specimens of the errors that are to be found in 
the 'sixth census' in regard to nosology and educa- 
tion, and they suspect also in regard to other matters 
therein reported. 

" In view of these facts, the undersigned, in behalf 
of said Association, conceive that such documents 
ought not to have the sanction of Congress, nor ought 
they to be regarded as containing true statements 
relative to the condition of the people and the re- 
sources of the United States. They believe it would 
have been far better to have had no census at all 
than such an one as has been published ; and they 
respectfully request your honorable body to take such 
order thereon, and to adopt such measures for the 
correction of the same, — or, if the same cannot be 
corrected, for discarding and disowning the same, — as 
the good of the country shall require, and as justice 
and humanity shall demand. 

" We have room for the tables for only three of the 
states." [We will caution the reader not to skip this 
statistical table, as he probably never saw one like it 
before.] 

MAINE. 



m „. Total col'd Col'd 

T^"" 1 *- Inhab't.. Insane. 



Limerick, 

Lymington, 

Scarboro', 

Poland, 

Dixfield, 

Calais, 

Coventry, 

Haverhill, 

Holdernes3, 

Atkinson, 

Bath, 

Lisbon, 

Compton, 

Freetown, 

Plympton, 

Leominster, 

Wilmington, 

Sterling, 

Dan vers, 

Hingham, 



Industry, 

Dresden, 

Hope, 

Hartland, 

Newfield, 



NEW" HAMPSHIRE. 



Stratham, 

Northampton, 
New Hampton, 
Lyman, 

Littleton, 

Henniker, 



MASSACHUSETTS. 



Georgetown, 

Carver, 

Northbridge, 

Ashby, 

Randolph, 

Worcester, 



1 
1 
1 
1 
1 
151* 



2 
1 
1 
1 
1 
133 



* 36 of these under 10 years of age. 



Every fable, allegory and romance, must have 
its moral. The moral of this ought to be deeply 
considered by the American people. 

In order to gain capital for the extension of slave 
territory, the most important statistical document of 
the United States has been boldly, grossly, and per- 
severingly falsified , and stands falsified to this day. 

Query : If state documents are falsified in sup- 
port of slavery, what confidence can be placed in 
any representations that are made upon the sub- 
ject? 



INDEX. 



PART I. 



CHAPTER L — Introduction p. 5 

CHAPTER II. — Haley 5 

Author's experience. — Trader's letter. — Kep- 
hart's examination. — Invoice of human beings. 

— Various classes of traders. 

CHAPTER III. —Mr. and Mrs. Shelby 8 

Account of a well-regulated plantation. — Extract 
from Ingraham. 

CHAPTER IV.— George Harris 13 

Advertisements. — Lewis Clark. — Mrs. Banton. — 
Story of Lewis' sister. — Mr. Nelson's story. — 
Frederick Douglas. — Josiah Henson's account 
of the sale of his mother and her children. — Re- 
cent incident in Boston. — Advertisements for 
dead or alive. 

CHAPTER V. — Eliza 21 

Author's experience. — History of a 6lave-girl and 
her escape. 

CHAPTER VI.— Uncle Tom 23 

Similar case. — Old Virginia family servant. — 
Bishop Meade's remarks. — Judge Upshur's ser- 
vant. — Instance in Brunswick, Me. — History of 
Josiah Henson. — Uncle Tom's vision. — Similar 
facts. — Story of a Boston lady. — Instance of the 
Southern lady on a plantation. — Story of an 
African woman. — Account of old Jacob. 

CHAPTER VII. —Miss Ophelia 30 

Prejudice of color — Instance in a benevolent lady. 

— Dr. Pennington. — Influence of this upon slave- 
holders. — True Christian socialism. — Amos 
Lawrence. 

CHAPTER VIII. — Marie St. Clare 33 

The Northern Marie St. Clare. — The Southern 
Marie St. Clare. — Degrading punishment of fe- 
males. — Dr. Howe's account. 

CHAPTER IX. — St. Clare 35 

Alfred and Augustine St. Clare representatives of 
two classes of men. — Letter of Patrick Henry. — 
Southern men reproving Northern men. — Mr. 
Mitchell, of Tennessee. — John Randolph of Roan- 
oke. — Instance of a sceptic made by the Bibli- 



cal defence of slavery. — Baltimore Sun on 
Biblical defence of slavery. — Specimen of pro- 
slavery preaching. 



CHAPTER X. — Legree 39 

No test of character required in a master. — Mr. 
Dickey's account in "Slavery as It Is." — "Work- 
ing up slaves." — Extracts from Mr. Weld's 
book. — Agricultural society's testimony. — 
James G. Birney's do. — Henry Clay's do. — 
Samuel Blackwell's. — Dr. Demming's. — Dr. 
Channing's. — Rev. Mr. Barrows'. — Rev. C. C. 
Jones'. — Causes of severe labor on sugar plan- 
tations. — Professor Ingraham's testimony. — 
Periodical pressure of labor in the cotton season. 
— Letter of a cotton-driver, published in the 
Fairfield Herald. — Testimony as to slave-dwell- 
ings. — Mr. Stephen E. Maltby. — Mr. George 
Avery. — William Ladd, Esq. — Rev. Joseph ML 
Sadd, Esq. — Mr. George W. Westgate. — Rev. 
C. C. Jones. — Extract from recent letter from 
a friend travelling in the South. — Extracts with 
relation to the food of the slaves. — Professor 
Ingraham's anecdotes. 

CHAPTER XI. — Select Incidents of Lawful 
Trade 47 

Separation of an aged mother from her son authen- 
ticated. — Selling of the woman to the trader 
authenticated. — Parting the infant from the 
mother verified. — Suicide of slaves from grief 
authenticated. — Parting of "John aged 30" 
from his wife authenticated. — Case of old Prue 
in New Orleans authenticated. — Story of the 
mulatto woman authenticated. 

CHAPTER Xn. — Topsy 50 

Effect of the principle of caste upon children. — 
Letter from Dr. Pennington. — Instance of the 
Southern lady. — Story of the devoted slave. 

CHAPTER XIII.— The Quakers 54 

Trial of Garret and Hunn. — Imprisonment of 
Richard Dillingham. — Poetry of Whittier. 

CHAPTER XIV. — Spirit of St. Clare 5ft 

Containing various testimony from Southern papers 
and men in favor of Uncle Tom's Cabin. 



PART II. 



CHAPTER I p. 67 

Accusations of the New York Courier and Enquir- 
er. — Extract from a letter from a gentleman 
in Richmond, Va., containing various criticisms 
on slave-law. — Writer's examination and gene- 
ral conclusion. 

CHAPTER II. — What is Slavery? 70 

Definitions from civil code of Louisiana. — From 
laws of South Carolina. — Decision of Judge 
Ruflin. — Involve absolute despotism. — Do not 
admit of humane decisions. — Designed only for 
the security of the master, with no regard for the 
welfare of the slave. — Judge Ruffin. — No re- 



dress for personal injury that does not produce 
loss of service. — Case of Cornfute v. Dale. — 
Decision with regard to patrols. — Decisions of 
North and South Carolina with respect to the as- 
sault and battery of slaves. — Decision in Loui- 
siana, by which, if a person injures a slave, ho 
may, by paying a certain price, become his 
owncr , — Decision in Louisiana, Berard v. Be- 
rard, establishing the principle that by no 
mode of suit, direct or indirect, can a slave ob- 
tain redress for ill-treatment. — Case of Jennings 
v. Fundeburg. — Action for killing negroes. — 
Also Richardson t'. Dukes for the same. — Recog- 
nition of the fact that many pcrson9, by withhold 



INDEX. 



261 



ing from slaves proper food and raiment, cause 
them to commit crimes for which they are exe- 
cuted. — Is the negro a person in any sense ? — 
Judge Clark's argument to prove that he is a hu- 
man being. — Decision that a woman may be given 
to one person, and her unborn children to another. 
— Disproportioned punishment of the slave com- 
pared with the master. — Case of State v. Mann, 
showing that the owner or hirer of a slave cannot 
be punished for inflicting cruel, unwarrantable 
and disproportioned punishments. — Judge Ruf- 
fin's speech. 

CHAPTER III. — Souther v. Tue Commonwealth, 

THE NE PLUS ULTRA OF LEGAL HUMANITY. . . .79 

Writer's attention called to this case by Courier 
and Enquirer. — Case presented. — Writer's 
remarks. — Principles established in this case. 

CHAPTER IV. —Protective Statutes 83 

Apprentices protected. — Outlawry. — Melodrama 
of Prue in the swamp. — Harry the carpenter, 
a romance of real life. 

CHAPTER V. — Protective Acts of South Caro- 
lina and Louisiana. — The Iron Collar of Lou- 
isiana and North Carolina 87 



CHAPTER VI. — Protective Acts with regard to 
Food and Raiment, Labor, etc 90 

Illustrative drama of Tom v. Legree, under the 
law of South Carolina. — Separation of parent 
and child. 

CHAPTER VII. — The Execution of Justice. . . 92 
State v. Eliza Rowand. — The "iEgis of protection" 
to the slave's life. 

CHAPTER VIII. —The Good Old Times 99 

CHAPTER IX. — Moderate Correction and Acci- 
dental Death. — State v. Castleman. . . .100 

CHAPTER X. — Principles established. — State 
v. Legree; a Case not in the Books 103 

CHAPTER XI. — The Triumph of Justice over 
Law 104 

CHAPTER XII. — A Comparison of the Roman 
Law of Slavery with the American 107 

CHAPTER XIII. — The Men better than their 
Laws 110 

CHAPTER XIV. — The Hebrew Slave-law com- 
pared with the American Slave-law. . . . 115 
CHAPTER XV. — Slavery is Despotism. ... 120 



PART III. 



CHAPTER I. — Does Public Opinion protect the 
Slave? p. 124 

CHAPTER n. — Public Opinion formed by Educa- 
tion 129 

Early training. — " The spirit of the press." 
CHAPTER III. —Separation of Families. . . .133 
The facts in the case. — Humane dealers. — The 
exigences of trade. 

CHAPTER IV. — The Slave-trade 143 

What sustains slavery? — The facts again, and 
the comments of Southern men. — The poetry of 
the slave-trade. 

CHAPTER V. — Select Incidents of Lawful Trade; 

or, Facts stranger than Fiction 151 

What " domestic sensibilities" Violet and George 
had. — Testimony of a sea-captain, and of a fu- 
gitive slave. 

CHAPTER VI. — The Edmondson Fa mily. . . . 155 
Old Milly and her household. — Liberty and 
equality. — The schooner Pearl. — An American 
slave-ship. — Capture of fugitives. — Indignation. 
— Captives imprisoned. — Voyage to New Orleans 
and return. — Affecting incidents. — Final re- 
demption. 



CHAPTER VH. — Emily Russell 168 

Price of her redemption. — Not raised. — Sent to 
the South. — Redeemed by death. — Daniel Bell 
and family. — Poor Tom Ducket. — Fac simile 
of his letter. 

CHAPTER Vni.— Kidnapping 173 

Causes which lead to kidnapping free negroes and 
whites. — Solomon Northrop kidnapped. — Car- 
ried to Red river. — Parallel to Uncle Tom. — 
Rachel Parker and sister. 

CHAPTER IX. — Slaves as they are, on Testi- 
mony of Owners 175 

Color and complexion. — Scars. — Intelligence. — 
Sale of those claiming to be free. — Illustrated 
by advertisements. — Inferences. 

CHAPTER X. — Poor White Trash 184 

Slavery degrades the poor whites. — Causes and 
process. — Materials for mobs. — Fierce for slav- 
ery. — Influence of slavery on education. — Emi- 
gration from slave states. — N. B. Watson adver- 
tised for a hunt. — John Cornutt lynched. — No 
defence in law. — Justice prostrate. — Rev. E. 
Matthews lynched. — Case of Jesse McBride. 



PART IV. 



CHAPTER I. — Influence of the American Church 

on Slavery p. 193 

Power of the clergy. — The church, what ? — Influ- 
ence. — Points self-evident. — Course of ecclesi- 
astical bodies. — Sanction of American slavery, 
as it is, by Southern bodies. — Summary of re- 
sults. 

CHAPTER IL — American Church and Slavery. 

205 

Trials for heresy. — Course as to slavery heresies. — 

Course of the Methodist Church. — Course of the 

Presbyterian Church, before the division. — Course 

of the Old School body. — Course of the New 



School body. — Results. — Congregationalists. — 
Albany convention. — Home Missionary Society. 

— The protesting power. — Practical workings 
of the general system. — Pleas for inaction. — 
Appeal to the church. 

CHAPTER III. — Martyrdom 223 

Power of Leviathan. — He cares more for deeds than 
words. — E. P. Lovejoy at St. Louis. — At Alton. 

— Convention. — Speech. — Mob. — Death. 

CHAPTER TV. — Servitude in the Primitive 
Church compared with American Slavery. 228 
Fundamental principles of the kingdom of Christ 



262 



INDEX. 



— Relations to slavery. — Apostolic directions. 

— Case of Onesimus. 

CHAPTER V. — Teachings and Condition of thr 
Apostles. . / 234 

Apostles and primitive Christians not law-makers. 

— Preaching of modern law-makers. 

CHAPTER VI. — Apostolic Teaching on Emanci- 
pation 235 

CHAPTER VII. — Abolition of Slavery by Chris- 
tianity 237 

State of society. — Course of councils. — Influence 
of bishops for freedom. — Redemption of cap- 
tives. — Contrast. 



CHAPTER Vin. — Justice and Equity versus 
Slavery 241 

Regulation of slavery impossible. — Contrast of iu 
principles and provisions with justice and equity. 

CHAPTER IX. — Is the System of Religion which 

is taught the Slave the Gospel ? 244 

Points to be conceded. — What is taught? — Prin- 
ciples and discussion. — Necessary results of the 
system. — Specimens of teaching and criticisms. 

CHAPTER X.— What is to be done? . . . . 250 
Work of the church in America. — Feelings of 
Christians in all other countries. — Eradication 
of caste, and repeal of sinful laws against free 
colored people. — Various duties and measures 
as to slavery. — Closing appeal. 



ERRATUM. 

Page 42, second column, after twenty-fifth line from top, insert : 

"At the rolling of sugars, an interval of from two to three months, they (the slaves in Louisiana) work 
both night and day. Abridged of their sleep, they scarcely retire to rest during the whole period." 



I 68 



I f 
• - ) 





J\ 












V 






*w 



1?^ 



• « 






• •• 


















































^>/ 


















BOOKB:NDj\C 

Cran 



*°V 



•^o< 







